


Novocaine

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not the happiest ending but a logical one, POV Alternating, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8171552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: This is not the kind of work that Dennis had intended to do when he had taken up his position as Academia’s spy. (It’s not Ruri that Dennis meets on that late summer day in a quiet Heartland park- it’s Shun.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a resistance!dennis au, but not really.

Dennis dives behind an overturned desk as the sound of heavy footfalls echo down the ruined halls of the school. One, two, three- Dennis catches the sound of muffled conversation from beyond the doors thrown from their tracks. _Spread out, search, already have four new cards-_

Back pressed against the battered plastic and metal, Dennis stills his breath behind the borrowed red scarf wrapped around his face and neck, fingers resting atop his deck- four, five, six.

The footsteps fade down the hall- and how careless, Dennis thinks, to skip a room- though, he supposes, the less contact with Academia, the better. The last thing he needs is a careless underclassman blowing his cover and losing the path of least resistance to the bracelet girl. Being revealed would mean having to abandon Shun, and losing him would be… inconvenient. Seven, eight, nine, Dennis counts, then rises quietly from behind the desk.

“They know we’re here,” he mutters to Shun as he slips out from behind a battered cabinet. Shun only shoots him a focused look, impersonal and sure of their safety. It is a confidence Dennis sometimes wonders how he can afford, when desperation is still clear on the pinched faces of all the survivors they pass.

“There’s no reason to stop. We keep going,” Shun replies, and Dennis just shrugs and follows him out the door. The Clover School is deathly quiet, and the shadows of Academia’s students linger in the spaces between turning a corner, behind every door just slightly ajar. The soft fall of their footsteps feels like a death sentence as they echo down the scorched hall. Dennis hates to think what kind of duel happened here, something desperate and without elegance.

Shun turns the corner outside at a door blown off its hinges. Together they stare down the destroyed corridor, looking at where the covered walkway once led to the Clover Dormitories. It is near impassable now, the support pillars crumbled and concrete littered about in ragged chunks. Beyond the rubble they can hear the sound of Academia’s students chatting in the dorms, taken for their own.

Shun stops for a rare moment, and Dennis wonders if he’s disappointed all his plans have come to nothing yet again.

“ _The Clover Branch of the Resistance won’t have fallen yet,_ ” he had said, in that iron-barbed tone that left Dennis no room to disagree, “ _not with duelists like theirs.”_

Dennis sighs at the thought of another day’s efforts in vain. While he watches the students shift patrols through the broken dormitory windows, Shun turns and starts down the hall.

“Let’s go,” he says, and if it was anyone else, Dennis is sure he’d feel the faint edges of disappointment creeping in on this arrangement of theirs. But he has a strange sort of faith in this bad idea, still a soft thing in the mass of broken edges that is the current Heartland, especially after _that_ \- and so he turns and follows without protest.

* * *

The base is quiet when they return, impossibly still and drowning in the unnatural darkness of the new Heartland night. Only the flickering candlelight escaping from between the heavy canvas flaps of the tents betray that there’s life in the ruins of the industrial complex. It’s as if the people of the shelter have smothered out their life, playing dead in the hopes that Academia will not find them.

It’s a sound strategy. Shun knows from experience that it will not be enough.

He and Dennis weave through row upon uneven row with only the moonlight to guide them, picking their way past long-broken conveyer belts and scattered supplies too big for families to keep in their tents. Shun has to resist the urge to hold his breath, lest he break the desolate illusion and wake the children trying to sleep through their nightmares.

They slip quiet into their tent, and Dennis flicks the screen of his duel disk to life as they navigate the cramped space. They leave their shoes as they settle onto the bedroll, duel disks settled next to their arms. Dennis unwinds the red scarf from around his neck, offers it to Shun in place of the pillow they’d lost when their last stronghold was raided by Academia. Shun rolls his aching shoulders and accepts it.

Dennis smiles at him as they settle in for the night, tired but genuine, and then his expression is lost to the dark as the light from Dennis’ duel disk cuts out. He doesn’t, as with most things regarding Dennis, mean to think it- but he can’t help the gradual creep of honest gratitude, like a balm to the scrapes on his palms, that he’s not wandering these streets alone. He thinks, mind already clouding with the hazy edges of sleep, that it’s nice to have someone to rely on, someone that can match his nonstop pace in a city still trying to catch its breath and gather its wits.

“We’ll make it to the stadium tomorrow,” Dennis whispers, pressing close to Shun’s side. It’s a testament to just how tired Shun’s started to feel that he doesn’t bother trying to push him away.

Yuuto and Ruri are fine, he thinks, letting his eyes slip closed. Tomorrow they’ll try a new path to the stadium, where he knows they’ll be safe and waiting with fire in their veins and relief in their eyes-

As Shun falls asleep, it’s to the sound of Dennis breathing quiet beside him and the feather-soft whispers that it’s already been a dozen tomorrows.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today is they day they'll make progress.  
> (Maybe not in the direction they'd hoped.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's been an entire year since the first chapter went up, huh? This fic isn't dead though! Far from it, it's overtaken my previous longest shun/den wip. I was having problems writing this the way I wanted, so I switched the style and format a bit and I'm really excited to tell it!  
> Please heed the updated tags re: the ending, and if you're still with me I hope you enjoy!

It would be easier if Academia had told him he would have to infiltrate what’s rapidly being coined ‘the Resistance’ from the beginning of the invasion. He can handle changes in the plan- it’s just that he doesn’t particularly appreciate that his only warning in this was a hastily scrawled note in Ed Phoenix’s hand passed on to him in the chaos of the first hour by a twitchy young Ra Yellow who looked very much like she should never have set foot on a battlefield. 

He can defeat Shun while they’re out alone, if that’s what it comes down to, but it’s a duel he’s not completely sure he can win and a course of action he’d rather not be forced into. So he bides his time, waits careful and harmless at Shun’s side as they prowl the street together, trying to find a way past Academia’s blockade and towards the stadium on the other side of the city where the Resistance is gathering. 

They slip out of the makeshift shelter with a nod to the guards, students no older than themselves with red ribbons in their hair and matching clover pins attached to their uniform collars. The girls returned it, their eyes pained but determined, driven stronger by the knowledge that their school had fallen. 

Dennis tugs at the loop of the red scarf around his neck a bit self-consciously and turns his face towards the faint promise of warmth from the rising sun. “So,” he says, “where to today?” 

Shun’s reply is instantaneous, as it always is. They've tried enough places to determine the routine- Dennis always asks, Shun always has the answer ready, no matter how improbable the odds they'll make it through. “The shopping district next to the Clover School still looked abandoned. We’ll try there.” 

“The one we went to bef… a few days ago?” Dennis asks, and Shun nods. A hand slips over the side deck hanging at Shun’s belt; Dennis pretends not to notice. 

“Got it,” Dennis replies, cheerful and far more chipper than he actually feels in the pre-dawn hours. The shopping district next to the school is a zone designated for the Reds, and after the events of the previous day, Dennis can’t help but look forward to the presumably easy travel. Perhaps they’ll even make it all the way to the amusement park, which means the stadium would be within reach and the bracelet girl in his grasp before the end of the week.  

_Wouldn't that be nice._ Dennis scoffs under his breath at his own optimism, and instead thinks that any progress at all would be for the best. 

They keep close to the walls as they move, scarves tied tight around their faces to keep the dust and ash carrying on the wind from choking their breath. The road is relatively clear, and most of Academia’s patrols are half-asleep, making them easy to avoid. They make good time to the shopping district, a covered street brimming with bright storefronts and once-vibrant lights. 

Shun stops at the entrance arch, staring at a storefront just down the way. Dennis peeks over Shun’s shoulder to where a group of four Reds sit loitering in front of a pacing girl. 

Dennis sends the group a particularly nasty glare, confident that Shun won’t turn and see him. Most of the Reds he doesn’t recognize (which isn’t unusual), but the girl at the head he does, a particularly vicious kid looking for a promotion to Ra Yellow that her dismal dueling skills will never allow.  

“Now,” she says, pacing in front of her four bored-looking lackeys, “All I need is one more card. One more piece of Xyz scum groveling at my feet, and I can submit an application to Ra Yellow. And how are we going to catch one?” 

One of the lackeys mumbles something,  _clearly_ enthused. The girl stops on a dime and turns to him, staring down with an intensity that’s near comical. “What did you say?” 

The lackey refuses to make eye contact. “By any means necessary.” 

The girl straightens her back, posturing. It's probably meant to make her look intimidating, but the effect mostly makes her look like a kid trying too hard to convince everyone else that she's an adult. “That’s right, by any means necessary. I don’t care if you have to break their legs to keep them from running, got it? Hell, actually  _break_  their legs. Arms too, maybe. Easy to card someone who can’t duel.” 

It’s pathetic. Laughable, really, an Academia student hardly worthy of being called a duelist. Dennis knows that she means every word. 

“We don’t need to bother with them,” Dennis whispers in Shun’s ear, and he can feel the tension shift in Shun’s body as he slips towards the side street. Dennis follows, as always. 

The move mostly unimpeded, the sound of the Red girl’s voice carrying loud over the deserted streets and alerting them to keep well ahead of her group’s progress on the main street. Her lackeys grumble, and the topics turn to the mundane. If the streets weren’t lined with broken glass and the air wasn’t slightly burnt, Dennis thinks, creeping through a side alley to check on the group, they could have been a group of four normal students on their way to school. Dennis stops abruptly, presses his back to the wall. Four.  _Four_. 

Dennis peers out from behind the building, counts again- drop-out girl at the head, three lackeys trudging on behind her, obviously wanting nothing more to do with her schemes. Still four, where there were five before.  _Did one_ _break_ _off?_ _And where?_  Dennis thinks, pulling back and listening carefully for the signs of another student. 

He creeps back towards Shun, silent. “We’re missing one.” 

There’s a crunch of glass from behind them and Dennis has just enough time to dive to the ground, catching sight of a Red boy activate a card from the shadows. Dennis swears quietly, once, as the impact throws the breath from his lungs, more chiding himself than anything. 

He hadn’t expected any of them to actually be competent. 

* * *

 

Shun isn’t paying as much attention as he should be. It’s not his fault, he wants to protest, that the memory comes up fast and vivid and completely undeniable. In the memory he watches ghosts of themselves duel beside a storefront surrounded by children. He’s wearing a hero costume, all red with black accents and completely, utterly ridiculous, while across from him Dennis is in black from head to toe, complete with a terribly proportioned hat that shouldn’t work outside of 2D- and the fact that Dennis is quite obviously relishing every second of the children’s shouting and reciting stock lines prepared by their employer of the day only increases his discomfort by spite. 

“ _I_ _make a direct attack with_ _Entermage_ _Shadow Maker!”_

_And damn him, thought Shun, guarding his life with a trap he’d set at the beginning of the duel_ _, wasn’t he taking this a little too seriously?_

_The children yelled, an excited uproar at the unexpected counter. Shun only barely remembered that children's heroes probably weren't supposed to scowl at_ _their enemies as Dennis ended his turn with an evil laugh that Shun didn't know how he could see as anything but terribly cliché._

_"What's wrong?" Dennis taunted as he began his turn- he'd been hoping for a Rank-Up Magic, but he'd have to make to with Sharp_ _Lanius_ _\- "Is the big brave hero out of tricks already?"_

_No,_ _Shun_ _thought, the manager who hired Dennis to put on the show would probably be mad if he started scowling at the villain now. Even if he deserved it for dragging Shun into this in the first place._

_His attention was dragged away from his hand, from the field by a cry piercing through the jumble of children's shouts-_

_"Don't give up!" y_ _elled one of the girls at the very front, with an earnestness in her clenched fists and bright eyes that reminded Shun o_ _f_ _Ruri_ _when she was little._

_Shun smiled at her, then turned a hint of a smirk on Dennis- friendly enough that the children wouldn't catch it; familiar enough to Dennis that he absolutely would._ _He's_ _never throw away a duel like this_ _. He'd just drawn his path to victory, after all. It wasn't in the script, but he bit out anyway- "Shouldn't I be saying that to you, clown?"_

_Dennis returned the expression in kind. "We'll see if you can still be so confident next turn."_

_"You won't have a next turn," Shun replied_ _, and there it was_ _\- the kids exploded with cheers of encouragement for him._

He’s distracted by something he can’t help but remember. The phantoms of those children's words ring in his ears, the girl that reminded him of Ruri loudest of them all. It’s why he doesn’t realize that they have a tail until it’s far too late to even call a warning, because Dennis is already creeping back to his side and trying to speak one of his own-

Thirteen days in post-invasion Heartland has taught them two things, if nothing else: the value of a consistent deck, and how to move silently through rubble-strewn streets. It has not yet taught them how to move when an enemy duelist activates Raigeki from ten feet behind, pulling up stones from the street and searing scorch marks down the sides of buildings.

Shun registers heat before anything else- just heat and a sudden lack of air, and when he gasps for breath there is nothing but flame, teasing at his skin. The impact drives his consciousness from him, and the only thing he has time to think before the spotty darkness edging in on his vision drags him under is that he hopes that the blast got the rest of the Reds, too.

(In his nightmares, there is this- the flames of Academia’s assault, of throwing the stadium’s cracked glass doors wide only to find the interior scorched, the only signs of life his footprints in the ash and the scurrying of mice in and out of the darkest corners. He calls for Ruri, for Yuuto, but his voice is stuck, caught in his throat like they’re hooked into the tender flesh of his throat. It would explain why he tastes blood.

A whisper, movement- frantic, he turns, reaching out for the people who are no longer there, but he is the one caught instead, a firm clap on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” the voice tells him, and a gloved hand points out two shapes in the darkness, blurry outlines shifting and shrinking every time Shun blinks.

‘I need to find them,’ he wants to say, but his voice still fails him, his feet locked in place as the outlines shimmer and disappear into the dark. He's too far away. At this distance, he can't protect them-

“It’s okay,” Dennis says, and suddenly he’s in full view, Shun’s scarf wrapped around his outstretched hand. “Your sister’s going to kill you if you don’t make it, right? A card on the breeze could move faster than you. If you don’t hurry, I’ll have to go find her myself.” Dennis laughs, the humor nonsensically dark but cutting into the nightmarish logic enough that Shun starts to realize that he’s only dreaming.

He has to go. He has to go, chase that hope that Ruri is alive and well, that Yuuto is waiting by her side, even if it’s only behind closed eyelids and the expanse of his own mind.

“Yeah,” he says, returning that smile with a chuckle of his own, reaching out a hand to clasp Dennis’. They turn together down the road, and the stadium is there again, battered and broken but bustling with life.

He steps forwards, pushes open the doors-

Commotion from behind. He turns, but steps have become meters and he moves as if half-caught in sand-

In his nightmares, a borrowed red scarf, slipping through his fingers as it dissolves into the flash of a card.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was first drafted in 2015, right after shun v dennis take 2 and ruri's reveal (though parts were written even before that), so the villains of the week are going to be my Academia OCs. I usually like to use legacy characters, but there's no one in gx pitiful enough to be a villain here.  
> I did end up incorporating a lot of xyz arc characters in passing though, so it's not totally out of date haha


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Promises and threats are the two things he can't keep.  
> (This only partially goes both ways.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monday update. i was at a matsuri all weekend and came back too tired to do anything but go to sleep. next update will be saturday, then every week on saturday sometime evening JST until the fic is done.

“We got them,” the leader Red says, shaking her unconscious teammates, “Wake up, damn it, we got them!”  

So the blast had caught up the rest of the Reds-  _good,_ Dennis thinks,  _a few less things to worry about_. He's never adverse to a duel, not deterred even when he knows he's going to have to throw it- but with this group, the thirty seconds he was out might have landed him a trip back to Academia as a card. It's not something he's eager to try, to say the least.  

Dennis cracks open a single eye, resisting the urge to cough the broken things from his lungs. A brief check, running over body parts one by one (legs, arms, hands, all in working order, though there’s a few bricks piled atop his arm that are going to leave a nasty bruise later). The alley that connects the two side streets has crumbled completely, the wooden arch piles of brightly-painted splinters amongst the toppled support beams. He spares a glance ahead, towards where Shun should be-  

_Ah._ He can't quite resist wincing in sympathy. As he'd fallen he'd grazed the fabric of Shun's jacket with a reaching hand, but hadn't quite managed to pull him down. From the looks of it, Shun hadn't had time to hit the ground of his own volition, either. He's prone on the ground, edges of that long jacket singed and uneven but thankfully not still smoldering. He's still breathing, at least, and Dennis can't see any sign of blood. A long sigh of relief escapes him, near silent unlike the cough that still wants to try and push the ash from his lungs. It looks like the corridor itself took the bulk of the damage.  

Behind them the Red tries shaking her lackey's shoulder a while longer, giving Dennis enough time to rise from the rubble with practiced quiet, his head pounding and clothes singed and torn but not seriously harmed. He rolls his shoulders, feeling almost clammy in the absence of the earlier heat. His scarf- or rather, the one he'd borrowed from Shun- smells like smoke and sweat and tastes like dust, but he pulls it up over his mouth anyway. He's not really going to chance being recognized now. 

It's not long after that she gives up with a curse and turns to Shun, disk at the ready. 

“You shouldn’t do that,” he says, and the Red’s head snaps up, lips curling in disdain the moment she spots him. 

“Yeah?” she says, “and why not?" 

“You’re just a Red. You’re not a threat to us.” He says it not because he means it, but because it is an insult that will cut- he too was a Red once upon a time, until the Professor happened to see the talents he so confidently put on display. He knows well the whispers about Reds, the taunts and the insults that weed through the weakest-willed of them one by one. 

The girl only sneers, disk flashing to life. “Oh yeah? We’ll see if you’re so confident after a duel.” 

_Finally_ , Dennis thinks, and draws his opening hand. 

The girl breaks Academia’s rules and plays a custom deck, which is a shame, because the way she plays, Antique Gears might actually suit her. Cybers are above her level, and Dennis can’t help but smile as Trapeze Magician and Shadow Maker clear her field, Cyber Phoenix slipping with a cry into the grave and knocking her life points down by half. 

Because of her monster’s effect the Red draws a card, stares down at it with the makings of an expression almost childishly excited and better kept in her mind than on her face. Still acting undaunted, the Red postures, waves around the remaining cards in her hand. “What, is that all? You came in talking all big. Made me think you might actually be a challenge, but you're not even gonna last another turn.” 

Dennis smiles pleasantly, though the effect is ruined by the fact she can't see it for the scarf. He compensates with a wide sweep of his arm, that Trapeze Magician mimics on the field. “I activate Trapeze Magician’s effect! By using one overlay unit, I can grant one spellcaster-type monster on the field a second attack this battle phase.” 

“Huh?” the small noise slips from the Red’s lips before she can stop it, and Dennis watches the exact moment that her bravado crumbles. "Wait, are you-" 

Dennis smirks as the girl steps backwards, suddenly looking so much smaller. “I make a direct attack with Trapeze Magician!” 

Trapeze Magician barrels into the Red, who hits the ground and stays there, scrambling backwards until her back hits the wall and cowering, crossing her arms over her head and peeking up at Dennis with half-closed eyes. “Please, you can’t, you can’t you can’t you  _can’t_ -“ 

Dennis sighs and raises his hands in a grand shrug. “What, do I really look like that bad of a guy? I’m not the type to-“ 

But the girl is already gone, fled back to Academia in a burst of shimmering blue light. Dennis stares at the space where she was, for a moment, then down at the disk on his arm, unassuming and soft at its edges. He says to the empty space, “This disk can’t even do that, you know.”  

* * *

He can keep going on his own. He’ll chase the belief that Ruri and Yuuto are still safe with the Resistance until there’s more than just his nightmares to tell him otherwise. He’s always been there to protect Ruri, to fight alongside Yuuto and chase their dreams, all three of them aiming for the very top of Heartland’s dueling arenas. 

(If he doesn’t have that, then what  _does_  he have left?) 

The memory is blurry and distorted, Ruri's words buzzing in his ears like radio static and their family kitchen an indistinct blur of shapes and colors that he can't seem to pin down, even though he knows what they should be. It's what clues him off to the fact that he's dreaming. 

_"I was so close,"_ _Ruri_ _muttered, finally pulling her head up from her arms- which was an improvement, given that she'd not_ _acknowledged_ _Shun since he walked in the door that afternoon. Sulking, bottling up all her negative emotions until she finally felt like speaking them aloud- Shun had long since learned that trying to pry them out was something for only the most desperate of circumstances._  

_"What place did you come in?" Shun asked, and_ _Ruri_ _slid the ranking sheet across the table. Shun scanned down for her name, didn't have to read for long. Kurosaki_ _Ruri_ _, typed neatly next to Rank 6. Shun lifted an eyebrow that_ _Ruri_ _didn't see, head ducked in her arms again. Her recent string of losses had_ _been foolish- the both of them knew that. But there was always more time to climb the school_ _ladder_ _, and Shun had_ _most_ _always held_ _the_ _mentality_ _that a foolish loss could_ _still be made right again_ _._ _It was, perhaps, what he had said to her after her loss to Sayaka that had started this, back months and months ago- you can't make a loss right again if you try to part on pleasant terms with_ _all your enemies. But in the months intervening, the girls had become friends despite his words- rivals, even. There was little he could protest about that._   _He continued- "That's still a good ranking to go into midterms with. You've been doing really well, lately."_  

_"I know,"_ _Ruri_ _said,_ _voic_ _e muffled_ _by her sleeves. Then, even quieter, "I just thought I was catching up faster, is all."_  

Suddenly he recognizes the blur of the background as the feeling of light and shadows playing across his eyelids, his own words are drowned out by the sound of someone else's. 

“Come on, Shun. Stay with me,” Dennis repeats- or at least, Shun assumes he does. He’s hovering on the edge of dreams and the waking world, where he can convince himself that anything’s real with the right amount of self-delusion. He tries thinking of Ruri instead- if it’s a dream, he’d at least like to see someone actually reassuring. “Come on, Shun, stay awake. I can’t carry you out of here.” 

But no. Dennis is still here -dust-covered hair and all- which means this, the tiredness of his limbs and the creeping pains of bruises starting to form, is his reality.  He clears his throat, holding back a groan- “You won’t have to. Where did Academia go?” 

“Ran back home,” Dennis says, “though not before I taught them a lesson about messing with the Resistance. There's a few left, but they're out cold. I think they got hit harder than we did.” 

Convenient. Shun isn't going to question it- things rarely happen to their advantage here. “Good.”  

Shun braces himself and struggles to sit up, feeling something in his shoulder protest at the movement, pulling down his back in a burning sensation like skin being pulled from him by the tender edges. With a shaky breath he pushes himself to his feet, feeling an ankle protest at the weight. Pieces of shattered brick pulled from the street below fall off his back, hit the ground with a clatter- but it won't hurt if he doesn't think about it. He takes a tentative step and hides his wince beneath the motion of tightening his bandana.  

Dennis moves up to his side, offering a shoulder in support. Shun shrugs him off and keeps moving- with every step the pain of his twisted ankle starts to fade to something muted, dulled enough that if he stays focused on moving forward. 

“Shun,” Dennis protests, but Shun doesn’t stop, doesn’t look back. There’s no time; reinforcements are doubtless on their way like vultures to clean up the survivors.  _All they’ll find is their own,_  thinks Shun, not without some satisfaction.  _We’re not so weak. Especially not against a coward’s tricks._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to introduce my ocs at the end of relevant chapters! it's 100% not necessary to read these but they're my trash children  
>  **Mariko Reynolds** (1st year, Osiris Red)  
>  \- drop-out girl! but not in the affectionate judai way, in the "someone please explain; why hasn't she just quit yet" way  
> \- plays: "cybers" by which i mean she has a terrible collection of mismatched cards with "cyber" in their name somewhere. her ace is cyber phoenix (though in reality it's the one single copy of cyber dragon she has and treasures more than anything. she just never gets the chance to actually use it in a duel)  
> \- has no idea when to give up. "lose the battle win the war," she says, except she usually loses both  
> \- she gets followers mostly because of a) her reputation or b) her looks. she doesn't tend to keep them very long because of her personality and the fact she constantly swoops in to steal other people's achievements  
> \- to not be mean for a second: her levels of self-confidence are literally ridiculous. someone trying to badmouth or bully her? literally bounces right off. you can't scathe her, it's impossible  
> \- however that also means she always sees herself as a hero who can do no wrong. how she can do that while literally threatening to maim people is beyond me but hey  
> \- her cyber phoenix is actually a duel spirit, but she can't see them at all so she has no idea. she's just kind of drawn to the card and won't give up her theme, even though logically she knows she'd do way better with a consistent deck


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's still greenery somewhere in Heartland.  
> (It's no substitute for the place it used to be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your support!!  
> we're into the stuff from when i revised this in 2016, so chapters from here on out will be mono-pov, alternating every chapter instead of switching halfway

“You need to rest,” Dennis protests without knowing why, “You’re going to get us both killed if you’re walking around half-dead already.” 

They don’t have the time to rest. Dennis has taken long enough to confirm Kurosaki Ruri’s location, and if any of the higher ups suspect he’s intentionally delayed her capture… He has not yet been subject to any of Academia’s more cruel punishments, nor does he have any intention of being so. 

And yet. “Come on, Shun. At least sit down for a while.” 

He’s unsteady on his feet, and no matter how well he hides pain beneath determination, Dennis can tell. He’s too proud to take Dennis’ offer of a shoulder to steady himself on, even after all that they’ve been through together. It’s charming, in the sort of way that his stubbornness can be- or rather, in the way that peeling away his single-minded exterior is. 

Shun continues without a word, resorting now to pretending that he simply can’t hear Dennis at all. Dennis sighs and jogs ahead a few paces, glancing around the corner. Getting tossed around by that attack had thrown him more than he wants to admit, and his sense of direction’s been scrambled a bit- but if they’re where he thinks they are, then he’s sure he can convince Shun to rest a moment here. 

He sticks his head out as he scans the cross street, ducking low to the ground in case of a patrol- _heading into Yellow territory, now_ \- but the open space before him is deserted. He waits a moment, listening for footsteps and the familiar  _clank_  of gears carrying on the wind, but it is devoid of even birdsong. Dennis waves Shun forward. 

Together they scramble across the street, taking shelter behind an overturned bench pressed up against what was formerly a cheerfully painted boulder, now reduced to several smaller rocks. It covers them well, and Dennis nudges Shun further underneath with his elbow. Though Shun knows he’s been tricked, he doesn’t protest more than a huff- more acceptance than outright objection. It's how Dennis knows he's right. If Shun was on his own, he'd walk on without another thought but of his destination. He stifles a humorless laugh. Shun is always so easy to read.  _Well. Almost always_ , is the reluctant addition. 

Dennis glances out at their surroundings again. The park, in his memories, is a small but vibrant place, nestled snugly between a main road and the edge of a brightly-lit Heartland skyscraper. This one- unlike most of its kind- is still intact, though perhaps none the better for it. 

Shattered glass coats the neatly-paved walkways and toppled trees lay roots splayed to the open air. There’s nothing left of the playground but scrap metal, crushed beneath a giant’s advance. Dennis remembers collapsing behind one of the now-fallen trees, catching his breath after a long day, staring up at the glimpses of sky between the branches. It's nostalgic, looking out through the wooden bench slats in much the same way. The world shimmers, and he can see the way the world was, overlaid above the pitiful scene- 

_Late summer came to Heartland with the whisper of autumn carried on the breeze, ruffling the tablecloth he’d set over the rickety old table._ _A few had already gathered, faces new and old alike, drawn in by a few simple warm up tricks and the promise of a show. Dennis thought a while. He didn’t have a set, per say, but there were a few things he should practice before the next time he tried to show them to-_  

_“Oh, come on, Shun. It looks like fun.”_ _Voices on the wind, much louder than the mutterings of parents to their children as they waited around him. Dennis turned_ _, thrown from his thoughts_ _. Near the back of the crowd were two boys around his age, walking quite slowly past._  

_“We should be practicing for the tournament_ _,” the taller boy grumbled, but stood obligingly with his friend near the side of the crowd._  

_And, well- Dennis hadn’t planned to duel anyone today, but how could he resist the opportunity?_  

_“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls_ _-“ Dennis_ _said, taking first a deep bow, using the motion to mask pulling Trapeze Magician from his extra deck, “today’s show will be a bit different than usual._ _You see, I’ve been training as an entertainment duelist these past few months, and it’s time for the grand unveiling!”_  

_He set his card into play, then threw his arms wide as, on cue, Trapeze Magician burst from behind the tree at his back_ _and_ _flew_ _low over the heads of the crowd, teasing at the tips of a few fingers raised high, begging to be chosen. Trapeze_ _Magician ignored them all, instead holding out a hand to the_ _boy who hadn’t wanted to stop. His face was unreadable, an odd sort of placid glare that told Dennis he knew exactly what he was up to._  

_“Going to turn down a challenge?”_ _his presumed friend_ _teased, and the other scoffed, took Trape_ _ze Magician’s outstretched hand. He f_ _lew through the air_ _with an impassive expression, as if he’d taken wing a hundred times before._  

_“Don’t expect to win,” the boy said, duel disk flashing to life._  

_Dennis smiled genuine at_ _his choice of opening words_ _. Playing against the prideful could only go one of two ways- but he didn’t seem as if he was all talk._ _Confident, rather than arrogant._ _“Not easily, of course,” he said, then- “Dennis_ _Macfield_ _. What’s your name?”_  

_“Kurosaki Shun,”_ _Kurosaki_ _replied, then drew his opening hand._  

_“Kurosaki,” he tried, and drew his own, “I’m looking forward to this.”_  

Dennis shakes himself from the memory. The echoes of their first meeting aren’t important, right now. What’s important is moving forwards, and coming up with a plausible enough excuse to slip away and make Shun rest for a while so he won’t end up getting the both of them turned to cards. 

“I’m going to go scout ahead,” Dennis says, the exasperated plea of  _will you_ _please_ _stay here?_   unspoken but heard, from the sour expression on Shun’s face. 

“Fine.” 

Dennis doesn’t thank him, but winks as he slips out with a promise not to be long, to much the same effect. The last glimpse Dennis catches of Shun is him crossing his arms and shifting to elevate his foot. 

He heads across the park, clinging close to the trees, then skitters across the street and rounds a corner, out of Shun’s line of sight. He lets out a long breath- might as well actually poke around a little. This area was hit much harder by the initial onslaught than most of the places they’d been already, and there’s no telling how things have changed from the plans- 

“Hey,” calls a voice, and Dennis whirls on the spot, trying not to look alarmed. 

Standing behind him is a boy- short, physically rather bland and unassuming. In a crowd, he’d be invisible. His jacket, rolled up slightly at the sleeves, is red. Dennis asks, neutral, “Anything I can help with?” 

 “I recognize you,” says the boy, and though his posture is unassuming, Dennis spots a card between his fingers, the gleam of the console on his duel disk. Safety measures. He's a smart one- and recognition hits him, then- the smartest of the Reds from the shopping street. “You were one of the students the Professor sent ahead to do recon.” 

“Ah, you found me out.” Dennis smiles, in the way he’s been told is charming. He's just focusing on not letting the irritation of his aches show on his face.  “I’ve been doing undercover work, but as you can see, it’s been causing problems.” 

The Red raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You can’t leave the other duelist behind and go straight to the Resistance camp?” 

Dennis bites back his irritation.  _Unfortunately_ _not,_  he thinks,followed fast by-  _How does this kid know so much?_  

He revises his opinion from  _unassuming_  to  _potentially a problem_. Aloud he says, “No, I can’t. I have more objectives than just joining the Resistance. But what would you say to helping me out? I’ll put in a good word for you back at Academia.” 

Dennis has the influence, not that he's ever really bothered to use it beyond dressing as he pleases and collecting cards from other dimensions. Still, it's the right thing to say; the boy's eyes subtly light up and he agrees without a moment's hesitation. 

The boy listens carefully as Dennis lays out the simple plan, nodding every once and a while. At the end he confirms the information quietly back to him. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” the Red says at the end of it, then adds, like an afterthought- “Oh, but can you put in the good word for Mariko Reynolds instead? She’s been looking for a promotion.” 

Dennis looks the Red over again. He assumes it’s the name of the girl from before, all false bravado and little skill. Why he'd give away such easy credit, Dennis doesn’t know. Still, he agrees. He has no reason not to.  

“As long as it goes well,” Dennis replies, and sets back towards the park. He realizes that he’s yet to ask the boy’s name. He doesn’t look back to ask- it doesn't matter. He trusts the boy to follow at a suitable pace.  _Really,_ thinks Dennis,  _why wasn’t he one of the spies?_  

He hasn’t wandered far. It only takes a moment to return to Shun in their shelter, greeted by an expectant gaze, cooled from much of its earlier irritation. “That wasn’t soon.” 

Dennis sinks down next to Shun and shrugs- both at his comment, and at the unspoken question for an update. Shun looks disappointed, in that understated way of his- until the moment footsteps crunch in the park behind them, and they both freeze, disks at the ready. 

“Shit,” says a voice, alarmingly close. Dennis matches Shun’s level of tension. “Lost him. Did they get through the patrols?” 

More steps, this time away. The Red swears under his breath. “That's the third one already... Did they all start figuring out that Shijo's basically abandoned? I’m gonna have to call someone…” 

His footsteps wander across the park for a while, before vanishing out of earshot entirely. Only then does Dennis turn to Shun. It’s a lead, and it might be the break they’ve been looking for these past weeks, carefully orchestrated to get them moving. Shun doesn’t smile, but beyond the edge of pain and irritation there’s a sparkle in his eyes, a hope that’s far too long overdue. He wonders if he’s allowed to feel proud that he was the one to put it there or not. 

_Probably not,_  he thinks- Shun's never been one for deceptions. Not even the gentle lies. 

Shun turns to him; Dennis half-expects to be scolded for letting himself be followed. After all, he's been the one insisting on stealth this entire time, a bold contrast to Shun's attempts to cut the shortest way straight through the opposition. It doesn't come. 

“Let’s go,” Shun whispers, and Dennis nods. They’ve wasted away enough of the morning. Time, finally, for progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **James Harrison** (1st year, Osiris Red)  
>  \- the perpetually forgotten kid. so much so that this is the most actual screen time he actually gets sorry james  
> \- plays shaddolls. he's actually quite good with them. he probably doesn't actually belong in red, but he understates his accomplishments to stay because of Mariko  
> \- Dennis fan club member #1. okay that's an exaggeration but. he admires people who demand attention. he'd always thought that a spy should be someone with little presence, like him, but the fact that Dennis was the one sent to Heartland is super intriguing to him  
> \- loyal to a fault. mariko defended him once in quite spectacular fashion when they were kids, and he's still glued to her side years later. on some level he's aware mariko is taking advantage of him, but he doesn't care as much as he should  
> \- unfortunately he completely idolizes the people he cares for and admires, which leads him to do extremely questionable things to be on their good side. like, y'know, singe some people. or manipulate mariko's lackeys of the week into letting her take credit when they did all the legwork.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To what lengths are you willing to go?  
> (The tide of Rebellion has just begun to turn.)

Shijo- the oldest district of Heartland- is an odd little part of the city, a clustering of homes at the base of the mountains built long before modern Heartland had sprawled out to consume them. Their progress here has been relatively unimpeded- and though it’s not the most direct path to the stadium, Shun knows his way around just well enough that the lack of Academia’s presence means they’re moving much faster than trying to pierce their way straight through the ruined areas.

It’s not what Shun would have done if he was on his own, but it  _is_ , he admits grudgingly, and only in his own thoughts, more practical. He refuses Dennis’ shoulder each time it’s offered, not wanting to admit his temporary weakness, and though it’s clear Dennis disapproves he  _has_  to keep moving, keep on back towards Central Street and the stadium outside Heartland’s amusement park. Even now Shun can see the broken remains of the tallest drop of the duel coasters peeking just over the rooftops. They’re not far. Give it another day, maybe two, and-

There is a flash of light in the corner of Shun’s eye, and he bolts towards it, all thoughts of tomorrow vanished. Light only means one thing, now, and it’s never a good thing for the ones left behind.

“Shun,” Dennis protests, and he suspects it’s more for his sake than Dennis’. He ignores it, focusing only on the sound of footfalls behind him and the echoes of battle up ahead.

The duel isn’t hard to find, even in these narrow streets. Shun skids to a stop at the edges of a battlefield, where a boy with bright red hair stands facing a girl in blue. Beside him stalls a great train, its overlay units making lazy circles as its whistle resounds down the empty street. The boy yells- “ _Direct attack_!”- and the train shoots forwards, slamming into the blue standing across from him. She slumps to the ground with a cry, and the boy doesn’t waste a second before he bolts. Shun is after him in an instant, and he knows Dennis is at his back, watching for more soldiers from behind.

Eventually the streets quiet again. The homes before them look peaceful, untouched, as if someone could wander out of them any moment to pull down the laundry hanging forlorn from the second story balconies. In the front yard of one a small fountain still runs. Only its emptiness speaks of the devastation behind it- he doubts anyone's been here in days. After a few glances over his shoulder the boy slows, turns down the claustrophobic alley between two houses. Shun does as well, giving in to his protesting ankle.

"Do I know you?" the boy questions, and Shun shakes his head.

Dennis stops beside him, taking a second to catch his breath, then says- “My name’s Dennis. This is Shun. Nice job back there.” 

“Allen,” the boy says, frowning, “My name’s Allen Kozuki. And this is my sister, Anna.”

He holds up the card in his hand. The girl printed on it smiles with one hell of an attitude for someone about to be carded, but Shun recognizes the expression-  _I’ll protect you_ , it says to Shun. Or rather-  _I’m leaving the rest to you._

He is reminded, suddenly, that it has been a very, very long time since he has seen Ruri.

“She looks strong,” Dennis says, and it gets Allen to smile. He glances down at the card; in his expression pride wins out against pain.

“Yeah,” he says, “she’s really strong. Way stronger than me. She taught me that combo I won with.”

Dennis doesn’t let the conversation settle into melancholy. It’s good; Shun doesn’t know what to say, overtaken again by thoughts of Ruri fighting her way through the streets alone. It compells him to action. “Do you live around here?”

Allen shakes his head. “We were going to the Duel Sanctuary out on the hill. Sis said she knows a bunch of people from Clover School heading there. They’re calling themselves a branch of the Resistance, so we were going to join, but…”

“Academia has the paths there barricaded. No way in or out of any major potential gathering points,” Dennis finishes, glancing over at Shun. 

Shun blinks back at him- he assumes that's true. Every other path in and out of the city has been blocked by makeshift barricades, staffed by Obelisk Force. Or so the rumor goes. Shun's never once thought of leaving before Heartland is  _theirs_  again. 

"So it's impossible, huh?" Allen says, disappointment obvious in the way his face falls. This is what he was fighting for, the same way Shun is pushing towards the stadium, slowly but surely. The Resistance fights for the place to make their stand.

“No."

Allen and Dennis meet him with twin looks of surprise. Tentatively, Allen says, "But, we can't attack the barricade with just three people. We tried with a lot more from Clover, and..."

He doesn't finish that sentence. Shun won't let him. "There's a side path. An old hiking trail that winds all the way up. You’ll be fine. We’ll clear the path for you.”

“Are you sure?” Dennis and Allen ask in unison, with equal amounts of surprise, though Shun suspects for quite different reasons. Shun nods to both. He can’t leave a kid out here on their own. He couldn’t face Ruri again if he did. Besides, he knows the way; it’s not far. He and Yuuto and Ruri had taken a dozen trips up the mountain, just the three of them for the weekend. They'd gone the disused way once on a vague notion of adventure; for the most part, it had been longer than expected and miserably hot.

Well. It all turns to good memories in the end. He continues, “It's close by, and Academia probably doesn’t know about it. It’s behind the tonkatsu shop.”

Allen immediately perks up. “Oh, the one with the-“

But he never gets to finish. Almost before he notices, a Blue creeps from the shadows and snags Shun’s wrist. He whirls on the Blue, takes in his self-important smirk, the most arrogant look in the dark eyes barely dulled behind his glasses-

This isn’t the time or the place for a duel. Cramped spaces are a prime place to get cornered and overwhelmed by a dozen members of the Obelisk Force once you’re bogged down against a group of them. So Shun flashes the Blue an arrogant look of his own before he punches the boy hard across the face, and savors his look of surprise as the Blue stumbles backwards and releases his wrist.

“Go!” Shun yells, and the three of them bolt down the alley, Allen leading the way towards the old shop where the town gave way to the mountain. And they were just in time, Shun thought, if the sound of the Blue yelling orders to a jumbled group of voices is any indication.

It doesn’t take them long to get there, dodging though the narrow spaces between homes and leaping over mostly intact fences. The sounds of chase slowly fade from behind them, though they don’t disappear entirely. At some point he hears a distant call to split up and cover more ground- but they’re already close enough. Across the road the shop waits for them, glass windows shattered but otherwise intact. After a moment to check the cross street they bolt across, jumping from wall to wall.

Their first thought- the obvious one- is to try to skirt around the outside, but the ramen shop beside it stands a crumbled mess of ruin strewn about up the sides of the neighboring shops. Shards of glass and iron piping poke up from the pile- climbing over would be too much of a risk.

Shun turns away to try the side door, and it swings open with a rusty creak. The interior is more of a mess than it had looked, and Shun guesses there must have been a duel that had eventually broken out of the restaurant's confines. No time to dwell on overturned tables and shattered countertops. From down the street comes unintelligible shouting- they’d been sighted or heard, and the clamor heads towards them at haste.

“Through the building, out the backdoor, then up the path to the back of the Duel Sanctuary. Got it?”

Allen nods, short of breath and wiping sweat from his forehead. It's no time to feel tired.

“Go!” Shun says to Allen, and the boy hesitates. The sound of Ancient Gears echo down the alley. Shun taps him lightly on the back, pushing him towards the door. Now isn’t the time for a grieving kid to try and help them. “Come on, go!”

“Thank you,” Allen says, then bolts through. Shun shuts the door and steps up to Dennis’ side, playing the part of trapped rats as an Ancient Gear hound blocks the path.

The Blue boy comes sprinting around the corner then, red-faced and heaving for breath. “Damn… you… Resistance rats!”

The impact of the line is rather lost by the fact he has his hands firmly on his knees, back hunched as he buys himself time to catch his breath. Shun and Dennis step up in unison, duel disks flashing to life.

The Blue straightens up and laughs, still sounding a little strained. “Finally. You two better put up a decent fight. I don't want to waste my time on typical Resistance trash.”

Shun rages against the insult and draws his opening hand before the Blue gets a chance. "You talk big. How long before you fall apart, just like the rest of your friends?"

That makes the Blue laugh again- cruel, utterly unlike the teasing way Dennis will occasionally start a retort to one of his jabs. "Take your turn, rat."

They duel. They’re pushed back from the first turn, and Shun spends the next one clawing his way back to equal footing with Dennis' support. Shun swears under his breath, Revolution Falcon returning from fruitless battle before him, and ends his turn. The Blue across from them draws, grins something wicked. “I tribute my two Ancient Gear Hunting Hounds!”

At his side, Dennis stiffens, a tiny motion he wouldn’t have been able to read in the weeks past. He doesn’t have the time to dwell on how that feels before the giant disturbs the air with a great tremor and the Blue’s expression contorts into something cruel and dark with malice. “Ancient Gear Golem! Come forth and destroy, my servant!"

It's a scene from a nightmare, and Shun is living it again. The giant rises above the buildings around them, and Shun knows what’s going to happen the second before it does. The giant emerges with one foot lifted, poised at the start of a march. Shun knows what’s about to happen and  _burns_  with it-

“Do it,” the Blue yells up to the monster, and Shun has half a moment to react before the Giant is crushing the building Allen had disappeared into, throwing up rubble and dust and never has Shun been more grateful for the bandanna wrapped around his mouth, even if he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the dust-

He doesn’t keep them closed for long. He can’t afford to. When he opens them again it’s to a pile of broken brick and dented steel where the shop where he’d celebrated Yuuto’s fourteenth birthday with Ruri and Sayaka not three weeks before- 

There’s a creaking from above, and Shun is cast into shadow. With deceptive swiftness the giant lifts a foot above Shun’s head, looming over him and Revolution Falcon alike. He has no traps, no quick-play spells left in his hand. He leaps to the side, but it’s not far enough-

“Trap, activate!” Dennis yells, and a great fortress rises behind them, obscuring the destruction with whimsical illusion. “Mage’s Fortress! When I control a spellcaster-type monster, you can’t declare an attack.”

The Ancient Gear’s foot stops in midair, speared in a rending screech by the long iron decorations atop the tower walls, gothic and dangerous. Trapeze Magician cackles from Dennis’ side of the field. The Blue turns up his nose, but the shadow of the Giant’s foot moves off of Shun’s head. At his side, Dennis lets out a long breath. Shun then says to him- “Finish it off.”

And Dennis does, though without most of his usual fanfare, not pulled from him even in the ruins of Heartland. A turn laced with the same vicious edge as Shun’s, but not consumed by it. Perhaps because Heartland isn’t his home. Perhaps because he’s not the one who’s set their pace to a punishing deadline.

It doesn’t matter. The Blue slumps to the ground, defeated and childishly indignant with all the grace of a brat who’d never lost a duel before- or at least not an important one. Shun moves to tower over him.

“What, you think this means anything? The Obelisk Force is almost here. I’ve called all the reinforcements I need. No matter how you run, you’re trapped like the rats you are.” Still acting as if he hadn’t just been defeated. Shun glares down at him, scoffs internally. The boy is obviously older than them, but knows nothing of hardship.

The Blue casts and uncertain, quick glance between him and the approaching Dennis when he gets no reaction. He blusters on- “What, are you already accepting your defeat? Too bad such interesting duelists have to be such fools. Go on, leave me here and-“

“You don’t deserve it,” Shun snarls, grabbing the Blue’s wrist, just above his duel disk- and it’s then that he gets the idea. “Take it off.”

“Why would I do anything-“

“Take off the duel disk, now.” Something in his expression makes the Blue do a double take, and he shakes off the disk hastily. Shun takes it carefully, balancing it awkwardly on his forearm and running through the menus with his free hand until he finds what he’s looking for. He takes just enough time that the Blue starts to shake, minute. His hand curls and uncurls just above where Shun’s grabbed it. If Shun hadn’t seen dozens of his classmates do the same, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

He’s tempted to ask for last words. Dennis, he realizes, may be rubbing off on him more than he thought. The boy speaks them anyways.

“I don’t regret a single thing,” the Blue spits, and Shun hits the button. There’s a flash of light, a strange sense in the air that has the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. In his grip now is the smoothness of a card, and Shun glances down at it, just curious enough. The boy’s face looking up at him is a smug, awful thing.

“What are you going to do with it?” Dennis asks, and Shun stares down at the card between his fingers. “Keep them for trophies?”

“I won’t stoop to their level,” Shun replies. Dennis shoots him a certain gaze, vaguely amused.  _Haven’t you already_? It says to him. Shun ignores it. Instead, he simply drops the card and turns away, heading towards the side street that was their original destination. He explains, to Dennis’ lingering stare, “Someone will come looking for him, if they care.”

Dennis chuckles lowly for a reason that Shun can’t possibly fathom and has no interest in discovering as he brushes past. He doesn’t wait to see if Dennis will follow when he turns the corner, sets them back on track. He’ll catch up. He always does. For now all they need to do is avoid the Obelisk Force.

After a moment Dennis jogs up to his side, begins tentative- “Do you think-“

“He made it through,” Shun says, with the air of finality about him that has ended many a duel. There was enough time. The interior of the restaurant could not possibly have been so ravaged as to delay Allen’s escape for that long.

"He made it through," Dennis echoes.

And, like that, it becomes another one of the things that they don’t talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first arc is over, but we're not even a third of the way through the word count yet. flashback arc is coming up, so that tag will finally get some real use from now on heh
> 
>  **Asada Shin** (2nd year, Obelisk Blue)  
>  \- the model honors student. such a paragon of what Academia was trying to create I couldn't justify having him around for more than one chapter  
> \- he plays the honors student deck, and doesn't really have a strong desire to play anything else. he knows how to manipulate it well, and that's all that matters to him in the end.  
> \- ohhhh boy Shin... he honestly believes in the hunting games. he really doesn't even need justifications- Academia's taught him his entire life that if he's strong he gets special privileges. it's just natural that extends to the rest of the world  
> \- he only cards duelists and only challenges people that are serious about their abilities. that's not out of any kind of kindness, but because the game's not _fun_ if it's not challenging. he grows bored of easy victories  
>  \- he's been in schools associated with Academia his entire life. he competes for the top spot with several other students, but he's most always within the top three. he'll never suffer the shame of dropping to fourth place again  
> \- he has an older sister, but because he's always been alone in Academia's dorms he might as well be an only child. even once she came to Academia in high school the two didn't interact much. that suits Shin just fine.  
> \- if he considers you competition, he's pleasant enough to be around, but no one weaker than him is worth his time. obviously, he really doesn't have any friends. again, this suits him just fine. he'd rather have enemies and rivals than friends, since they're less likely to pull their punches in a fight. that also means it's more fun to try and manipulate them emotionally if he gets the chance


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memory is measured by progression.  
> (And so the present as well.)

They stop for the night in a cramped but homely restaurant, largely spared the destruction of the street around it. Dennis goes immediately for the storeroom, looking for anything that isn’t from a can. On the way he checks the kitchen tap- it squeaks something awful, but there's no water to show for it. Not like he'd expected much different, but it's still a disappointment. He takes the majority of the cracker packages from the pantry before returning to the dining room sinking down behind the counter, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and absentmindedly remembering the last time he had been here. 

_Light flooded in from the windows lining the_ _store_ _front, and though the restaurant_ _was largely empty, Dennis sat in a booth_ _drinking soup from a mug and staring down at_ _Yusho’s_ _idea of homework._  

_The bell on the door chimed pleasantly, and Dennis looked up briefly from his_ _papers._ _“Kurosaki.”_  

_Kurosaki_ _cast him a curious glance, then moved to sit across the booth from him, leaving the waitress to_ _follow after_ _him. “Why are you here?”_  

_Dennis waved a hand in the vague direction of th_ _e street corner. “I go_ _do_ _shows_ _around here_ _sometimes_ _. I like to go out to eat after.”_  

_“Huh,” sa_ _id_ _Kurosaki_ _, more interested in the menu than him_ _, at that point_ _. Dennis_ _was_   _undeterred._  

_“What’s a good idea for a catchphrase? I need something snappy. How about,_ I’m an entertainer! _” He punctuated the_ _English_ _phrase with a snap of his fingers, pulling an extra card from his sleeve._  

_S_ _hun blink_ _ed_ _at him. “You always keep those up your sleeves?_ _”_  

_Sleight of hand is useful for more than you’d think, Dennis d_ _id_ _not say. He sigh_ _ed_ _instead. “Kurosaki! That’s not the point. What did you think of the phrase?”_  

_“Am I really supposed to have an opinion on that?”_  

_“Then what about_   ‘Showtime, Ladies and Gentlemen!?” 

_Kurosaki_ _wrinkled his nose, set down his menu to shoot Dennis a glance that said exactly what he thought of that. “Don’t make it sound like a question.”_  

Dennis sighs slightly, stares at their phantoms sitting at the table, bantering over a late lunch. Eventually he loses the thread of conversation, replaces it with one from a dinner much later, the two of them seated cold and wet next to the window and watching the torrential downpour outside over bowls of soup. 

_"There goes that idea," Dennis said, pushing a few sopping curls back behind his ear._  

_"It was a bad idea anyway," Shun muttered into his soup. Outside, a few passersby sharing a single umbrella scrambled into a nearby shop, bottom of their pants stained dark by the rain._  

_Dennis leaned over, tiling his stool on two legs to nudge Shun in the shoulder with his own. "Just take me there tomorrow, Shun."_  

_"No," Shun replied, "that's the part that's the bad idea. Taking you anywhere never ends up in anything good."_  

_"You wound me." Dennis nudged_ _Shun's_ _shoulder a final time before settling his stool back on all its legs with a hard_ thump _of wood against wood._  

_"You deserve it," Shun had replied, though the both of them knew he didn't mean it. They were long past the point of taking offense to half the banter out of each other's mouths._  

“I miss soup not from a can,” Dennis says, and chucks a package of crackers at Shun, who catches them deftly before sinking down and pulling the Blue’s disk from his bag. He doesn’t reply, just tears the package open with his teeth and shoves a few in his mouth. Dennis continues- “What are you doing?” 

“Trying to get the carding program on my disk,” Shun replies, tapping at the screen. Dennis carefully does not react. Shun continues, unaware- “It’s not like a normal app. I can’t just send the data over, but there has to be a way. You have any ideas?” 

“Nope,” Dennis says. It’s not even a lie- he’s never so much as opened it before. He’d never had the need. His current disk isn’t even Academia model anyways. He knows, vaguely, that a genius kid from Yellow had assisted in its maintenance, and that the Professor had personally valued and emphasized the importance of its use towards the hunting game, but little more. 

“Figures,” Shun says, not unkindly, “I’m pretty sure everything on your disk is still on its default settings.” 

Dennis crosses his arms and huffs, but can’t deny it. Shun has called his disk the least flashy thing about him on at least one occasion before. He was never supposed to be using it for this long; he can’t help it if he’s gotten used to the basic layout of an Xyz duel disk. 

“I’ll take first shift,” says Shun, engrossed again in the disk in his lap. 

Dennis nods before realizing that Shun hasn’t noticed at all. He says, dragging one of the torn curtains to the ground to use as a blanket, “Wake me up in a few hours. And elevate your ankle.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Shun says, but moves to shift his ankle anyways, grimacing a little as he does.  _Idiot_ , Dennis thinks at him as he remembers just how much running they’d done today, but there’s no bite to it and more exasperated fondness than he’d like to admit, so he throws himself down on his makeshift bed and resolves to think on it no more. 

He doesn’t expect to sleep- but when he closes his eyes it crashes over him and drags him under without a moment to spare for tallying his progress. It instead takes him through the dark with forgotten words until his mind sees fit to dredge up something else. The whispers solidify into dreams of a memory he doesn’t remember upon waking.  

_“I don’t get it,” Grace said, setting her sandwich down carefully_ _i_ _n the container on the gingham wrap set down before her, “Why do you keep insisting on using those_ _Xyz_ _cards? You know de Medici is going to keep getting mad at you.”_  

_Dennis leaned back against the tree bark, waving his golden egg sandwich_ _\- lucky again, today-_ _as he spoke. “I have to! They don’t play anything like Trapeze Witch alone does. If they’re going to send me as a spy, I want to be convincing.”_  

_Grace rolled her eyes, and Dennis was suddenly grateful that Gloria wasn’t here, caught up in something or other with Ed Phoenix, because it let him lean forwards, add in conspiratorial undertones- “_ _Besides. They suit me, don’t they?”_  

_With a pointed nail against his shoulder Grace pushed him gently back. He allowed it, let his shoulders slump- but he grinned at her impassive expression_ _. S_ _he sighed. “They do,” she_ _admitted, then added not a second later- “But you still need to put_ _some kind of Ancient_ _Gears in your deck if you want him to recommend you for the mission. You know how he is.”_  

_“My deck is going to brick,” he protested, but Grace cut him off with a sharp wave of her finger._  

_“No protesting,” she said, “_ _or else you’re just going to get stuck here like the little_ _Marufuji_ _brother.”_  

_Don’t want to be another drop-out boy, comes the implication._ _Don't want to be like the kids who'd started to lose their nerve as the date approached, looming over all_ _their heads with a frenzied excitement_ _._  

_“Fine,”_ _Dennis relented, but couldn’_ _t resist adding, “_ _but only for dramatic effect.”_  

_“What does that even mean?” Gloria called over at them_ _,_ _emerging from the nearby covered passageway_ _while_ _Grace hummed a thoughtful note._  

_And the rest of it… The rest of it-_  

Dennis wakes to the sounds of a duel disk starting up and practically vaults over the counter. The sound isn’t Shun’s- it’s the harsher startup noise of one of Academia’s. He's acting entirely on instinct- but Shun grabs his arm before he can actually leap over the counter and expose them both. Dennis takes quick stock of the situation. The front door of the restaurant is still closed, but a mixed group of three students is standing just outside, going through the ruined shops one by one. 

“Wait,” Shun says, grabbing the Academia disk from the bag slung over his shoulder, fiddling with it so he can reach over his shoulder and easily tug it free.  

Still, there's something wrong with this picture. Dennis glances outside again. It’s daylight, and Shun hadn’t woken him up. Dennis frowns; Shun leaps over the counter himself, landing a little more awkwardly, a little more unsteadily than usual. “Let’s go,” he mutters, and starts out the front door. 

“We can’t avoid them?” Dennis hisses, and Shun shakes his head. 

He hisses back, “Not unless you want to jump rooftops.” 

“I was thinking the back door,” Dennis replies, but it’s far too late- already one of the Blues in the group has spotted them though the half-closed blinds in the window, is racing towards them with disk flashing to life. 

“I’ve got this one,” Shun says, throwing open the door, “Cover me!” 

The two meet in the middle of the street, and Dennis glances around to find where the Red and Yellow had scattered to. From the alley across the street the Red boy shoots him a lazy, two-fingered salute and sinks into the shadows.  _The boy from the shopping district_ , Dennis thinks, and turns his attention to the Yellow standing beside him, a short girl with dark hair, looking twitchy and out of place- after a moment, Dennis recognizes her, too.  _The one who handed me the note_. 

While Shun is still occupied the Yellow shoots him a significant glance, then turns and runs, clearly telegraphing her turns. An invitation to follow. 

Dennis gives chase and wonders why he can’t ever meet someone from Academia he actually  _knows_ _._ Like Grace, or Gloria. Ed Phoenix. Yuuri, even. It isn’t as if he’s lacking for contacts even outside of them, though what they think of the special course student often more enthused by card tricks than classes, he’s still not sure. 

Once they’re a few streets down from the commotion, the Yellow stops, turns to him immediately. She doesn't waste any time before she cuts to the chase; that, at least, Dennis can appreciate right now. 

“You  _need,_ ” hisses the Yellow, “to get that disk away from the Resistance. If they get their hands on my-  _our_ \- program, oh gods, I don’t even want to think about it. That’s all our advantage gone, right there.” 

“Got it,” he says, and turns away, prepares to return to Shun with a frustrated  _lost her_ \- but she reaches out to grab his sleeve, jerks him backwards. He flashes her an expectant look- they don’t have much time left. She returns it with one of steel. 

“And when you’re done? I’ll be taking that other one you’re with.” 

Dennis raises an eyebrow, at that. She’s obviously not a fool; they both know that she’s outmatched. “Why?” 

With her free hand she pulls a card from her pocket. Dennis recognizes it immediately- it’s one of a kind, after all. She says, simmering with a deathly calm fury so unlike Shun’s, “Because he carded my little brother.” 

“Ah,” Dennis replies, and thinks that’s all that has to be said. 

“There’s this Red- James- who’ll be tailing you from now on. Short hair, kind of bland in a good way? He blends in. If you can’t take the disk and run, then get it to him,” says the Yellow, and though Dennis waits for the undercurrent of  _you let him card my brother_ , it never comes.  

“Got it,” he says with a smile that the Yellow does not return. 

Finally she releases his wrist and steps back, shrinking away. The courage that had possessed her is gone. She leaves with a whispered _goodbye_ _,_ and Dennis knows that he'll likely never see her again. 

(Not until he returns to Academia, at least.) 

Dennis jogs back to Shun, not waiting for her to retreat entirely- she doesn’t seem like the type to find trouble anyways. It’s a short jog, and he hears the shriek of one of Shun’s falcons, a wild cry of victory. When he returns, Shun is standing above a card, shoving the disk back into his bag. Still he glances down at the former duelist every once and a while, his eyes drawn there as if he can’t believe it’s there of his own making- until he hears Dennis’ footsteps. 

He looks up; their eyes meet. Dennis doesn’t address the card sitting innocuous on the morning pavement. Instead, he says, “Sorry, lost her. Ready to go?” 

Shun nods, hooks the bag over his shoulder with oddly strained motions. The weight of it hits his back with a soft  _thump_  that has Dennis looking away, unwilling to ask.  

“Let’s go,” Dennis says, and lets Shun lead them away from here, back towards the main streets of Heartland. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last oc! also on a side note i have a quick little lighthearted dennis + grace scribble i want to try and get done before i'm willingly murdered by my nano this year.  
>  **Asada Eri** (3rd year, Ra Yellow)  
>  \- self- isolated high school genius (or that's the lie she tells herself, anyway.)  
> \- plays naturias! she's an okay duelist at most, and would be better if she would use synchro monsters, but she doesn't have much of an interest unless it's fusion.  
> \- she's actually one of the few students from Academia that have left Fusion prior the the invasion. she went on synchro for a short research assignment to look into energy sources that would help finish off the carding system  
> \- she hates the idea of even remotely being in danger, so being in heartland right now? the sense of revulsion and terror is basically overwhelming  
> \- she really likes the idea of being special. she's gone her whole life being told that her intelligence is special to the point where if she's not receiving /some/ kind of recognition for it, that's the start of a self-worth crisis waiting to happen. she places far too much stock into how she appears to others and very little in her own self and interests  
> \- she's prone to monologues. naturally, because with most people, she has the most interesting opinions in the room. the fact she 'chooses' isolation is more a way to save face about the fact that, naturally, most people won't put up with this for very long  
> \- Shin's older sister. though the two aren't particularly close, and she's never felt the need to be particularly protective of him (if anything, it's been more the other way around) you bet she's pretty mad about the system she maintains being used to card her little brother


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like a breath of fresh air in the eye of the storm, familiar conversations in a familiar place.  
> (Like a breath of fresh air, sitting heavy in the lungs and charged with the electricity of the storm about to bear down.)

_“You’re meeting him again?”_ _Yuuto_ _said it not with judgement, but with a very poorly concealed mirth._ _“What happened to not_ _wasting_ _time with street shows when we have_ _exams_ _coming up?”_  

_“He_ beat _me,” Shun replied,_ _pulling on his jacket. He figured that was answer enough. “Besides. You wanted to duel him too.”_  

_Yuuto_ _shrugged, finally setting his pencil down between the pages of his textbook to give Shun his full attention. “Sure, but he’s probably going to pick someone else. I’m pretty sure dueling the same person two days in a row doesn’t sell anywhere but the pro leagues.”_  

_“Then I’ll wait until he’s done.”_ _Shun paused a moment, considering the red scarf hanging in the empty space where his jacket had just been- then closed the closet door. It wasn’t cold enough for that_ _yet._ _Summer and the sticky_ _humidity_ _of its heat had yet to leave entirely- they'd be having a warm fall, this year._  

_Yuuto_ _said on the tail end of a sigh- “Well, have fun.”_  

_As he returned to_ _scribbling notes,_ _Shun_ _paused, turned back to look at him. After a moment,_ _Yuuto_   _glanced_ _up and met his silent ‘are you coming?’ with a shake of his head. Shun lifted an eyebrow. In response_ _Yuuto_ _said- “You know what my math scores are._ _Ruri’s_ _going to help me study once she and Sayaka are done getting snacks.”_  

_Fair enough, Shun figured._ _Yuuto_ _admittedly cared more about his non-dueling marks than Shun usually did._  

The roads out of Shijo are more familiar to the both of them- signs for subway stations and bus stops start to crop up at much closer intervals the longer they walk towards the city center. Dennis starts to trot a few steps ahead of Shun, knowing they’re approaching that old one-room apartment of his. If Shun feels like admitting it, the landmarks here are probably just as, if not more familiar to Dennis than they are to him. 

On the corner, the convenience store most subject to Dennis’ post-show snack raids. Down the street, the karaoke place on the second floor above the miniature mall that Dennis always insists on trying to drag Shun to, though never succeeds. On the other side of the street, the insurance store with the hollow-eyed tanuki statue that has the neighborhood kids convinced it's possessed by some kind of malicious spirit. The further down they go, the more damage the infrastructure seems to have taken, and the less recognizable the familiar sights get. 

It’s not surprising, though Shun wishes he could say it is. But it’s unnerving to see these streets so empty, not when the Diamond Branch isn’t five blocks away. No signs of battle, no patrols out skirting each other’s territory. Not even a few civilians lingering in the ruins of their businesses, their homes. Shun says, if only to take his attention away from it all- “Do you want to go back to your apartment?” 

Dennis lifts an eyebrow at him. “Now’s not really the time to be sentimental, Shun.” 

Shun shakes his head. That’s not what he’d meant, but it cut irritatingly close to the bone regardless. “Food. Real food.” 

Dennis, if it’s even possible, raises his eyebrow even higher. Though he has, at least, the sense not to push it any further. The both of them know full well that the only food Dennis kept in his tiny apartment were things that could be microwaved, toasted, or similarly left on his portable stove and forgotten until they were done. 

_Well that,_  Shun thinks,  _and a ridiculous amount of coffee._   

With a sigh Dennis relents. “Fine,” he says, “we’re running low on water bottles anyway. I bought a case I never opened. Let’s go.” 

They turn abruptly, heading down a side street just as abandoned as the main one. It’s less damaged, and near-immediately more residential. He lets the familiar scenery pass. 

_Macfield_ _wasn’t where Shun was expecting to find him._  

_“If you don’t mind,”_ _Yuuto_ _had said yesterday, “I’d like a turn._ _"_  

_“Of course,”_ _Macfield_ _had replied, with a showman’s smile, “it’s a promise. I’_ _m here almost every day._ _I change parks every once and a while, but I just got to this one. I’ll be here for a while._ _”_  

_So_ _Shun had gone to the park over by_ _Sanjo’s_ _shopping district, figuring that_ _Macfield_ _would be out doing some kind of show. But when he arrived_ _Macfield_   _and his scavenged folding table weren’t there- or at least not set up, he thought, noticing the table folded up against the tree._  

_He wandered around the park a little while- it wasn’t a huge space, as far as Heartland’s parks went, and a loop around the perimeter was essentially a survey of the entire park. It was at the end that he picked up the sound of voices, speaking in words he, for the most part, didn’t understand. Three voices- one a_ _child’s_ _, muddled with tears. The second a mother’s, voice raised in an embarrassed apology. And the last one… unmistakably one he’d heard before. Lower than he was used to, but_ _Macfield’s_ _all the same._  

_He couldn’t understand the words, but the actions he could well enough._ _Macfield_ _was_ _kneel_ _ing_ _down_ _in front of the crying kid with a smile and what he imagined were showman’s words. He clapped his hands and in a puff of impossible glitter appeared a hat. He spun it on a finger, turned it upside down and shook it hard- ‘see? Nothing inside’- then snapped his fingers. The child’s eyes went wide, and_ _Macfield_ _held the hat out for them._ _Tentatively the child reached their hand in, and their mouth slackened into a wide ‘o’ when their grasped something. They drew it out, and the last of the sniffles turned into shrieks of delight at the toy clenched between their fingers. Shun recognized it, vaguely- one of the mascots for the amusement park, a cartoonish shark with smiling sharp teeth._  

_“Thank you!” the mother said, and the child echoed it over and over until they’d disappeared down the street, waving goodbye._  

_Only then did_ _Macfield_ _turn, and immediately spot Shun watching. Well. He hadn’t made much effort to hide his blatant observation. It couldn’t even be called eavesdropping if he hadn’t understood most of it, he figured._  

_Macfield_ _waved and strolled over. “Kurosaki, right?” At_ _Shun’s_ _nod, he continued, “I didn’t think you’d be back today. I already finished my show for the day, but if you want to come back tomorrow, then_ _-“_  

_“That’s fine,” Shun said, and_ _Macfield_ _quirked his head a bit in question. “I’m here for a duel. It doesn’t have to be part of the show.”_  

_“I don’t mind,” said_   _Macfield_ _, the hint of a dark smile on his face, “_ _but don’t expect to win. You haven’t seen half of my strategies, yet.”_  

_“I’ll win,” Shun replied, and that pulled the glint of a challenge from them both, “_ _but if all your strategies are on the same level as yesterday, you’re not going to be much of a challenge.”_  

Dennis lets them inside his apartment with the flourish of his keyring. Months ago, Shun had walked through the same threshold and been greeted with an almost embarrassingly dramatic- “ _Welcome to my mansion.”_  And Dennis’ voice had gone lower on the loan word, and Shun had thought, absently-  _So he does it with English words in Japanese, too._  

He thinks, in retrospect, that perhaps that was the first sign.  

This time there is no fanfare, just the quiet remains of a life that had been disturbed. It’s odd. If only there was noise echoing up from the streets, if only the light filtering in slanted from the window shades wasn’t clogged up with floating dust, if only the ridiculous multi-colored lights that Dennis had strung up in lieu of a proper lamp still cast the room into the world’s tiniest circus tent… Then maybe he could pretend that none of the past fourteen days had happened. That Ruri is waiting around at home with Yuuto, and that the water that Dennis is shoving into his bag is just in preparation for his show this afternoon. 

But they did, and he can’t. 

He stops trying. 

“What’s wrong?” Dennis asks, without turning around. He  methodically stacks water bottles on their sides, carefully curling his shoulders away from Shun. It’s as if he knows that asking too directly won’t give him an answer. 

Shun kind of hates that Dennis has learned to read him so well. He’d never had to worry about this from anyone but Ruri or Yuuto, before. Concern isn't something that most people go out of their way to show to him. Then again, he doesn't usually need it. He replies, nonchalant, “Just thinking that at least no one ever has to be subjected to those gaudy lights of yours now.” 

He can feel Dennis’ frown, even though it’s directed at the water. “Hey. Those lights were both cheap  _and_  good lighting. They had atmosphere!” 

Shun snorts derisively. “If you’re a clown, maybe.” 

Dennis huffs and finally turns to glare at him. Shun matches him with a grin, an echo of an old challenge and an old mock argument. Or a real one, perhaps, but not one of consequence. Regardless, Dennis has no retort. For a while they stack water, side by side in near-silence. Dennis, of course, never content with the quiet, is the one to break it. “Really, Shun,” he says, and Shun very much wants to think of something to keep him from asking what comes next, “what’s wrong?” 

And what is he supposed to say to that? That the Blue whose card he’d left in the street for the wind to blow to whichever corner it pleased that morning had heard he was from Spade and laughed in his face? That he’d said that branch of the Resistance had already been crushed, fledgling and frail? That despite all his effort and steadfast belief, Ruri and Yuuto might not be waiting at the end of it all? 

Dennis notices his hesitation and fills in the gaps. “Is it your ankle?” and then, before Shun can even be grateful for the obvious out, he turns to Shun with that  _look_  on his face and teases, “Want me to kiss it better?” 

“Yes, and  _no,_ ” he spits, and apparently he looks offended enough that it makes Dennis laugh. He doesn’t, however, say that he was joking. 

“See if you have anything edible sitting around,” Shun says instead of waiting for whatever Dennis will come up with next, and shoves a water bottle in the side pocket of his bag- his real bag, not the rucksack holding the stolen duel disk. He can’t risk ruining it, not when he might be the only one in the entirety of Heartland with the ability to level the playing field. 

_The field was clear before him,_ _Macfield_ _staring him down with the steadfast determination of a duelist who knew he’d been beaten but unwilling to give up the fight. Shun_ _smiled, not for the first time that duel- “Blaze Falcon! Direct attack!”_  

_He waited- but the attack struck true, and_ _Macfield’s_ _tension drained_ _away_ _as_ _the_   _falcon's wings blew up_ _a storm around him_ _._ _A_ _s_ _the solid vision faded,_ _h_ _e crossed the field and said, holding out a hand- “You’re good.”_  

_“Better than you thought?” Shun fired back, shaking_ _Macfield’s_ _hand amicably. Because_ _Macfield_ _had been better than his first impression. He dueled in a way that spoke of something else, something unlike the Heartland circuits and their typical strategies- but maybe, thought Shun, that was_ _more emblematic of the way_ _foreigners dueled._ _Or more likely, it was just a part of_ _Macfield's_ _otherwise_   _ridiculous style._  

_Macfield_ _grinned. “I wouldn’t say that. About what I expected, maybe?”_  

_“_ _So_ _you expected to lose.”_  

_He had the audacity to keep smi_ _ling, as if the insult hadn’_ _t affected him in the least._ _Macfield_ _said, still with that same_ _friendly_ _demeanor_ _, "I wouldn’_ _t say that."_    
   
Dennis does not, in fact, have anything edible left in his apartment. He didn’t have much before the past two weeks either, and the evidence of one of his and Shun’s snack parties is still in the trash- or rather, overflowing from both of the cans. Shun wonders, very belatedly, if he should have encouraged Dennis to eat a little better. 

“Okay,” Dennis says, tossing a moldy piece of bread into the trash, “Let’s go. No more time to waste, right?” 

And it’s true. From here on out he has no more time for hesitation, for worrying about the unlikely possibilities or the distant notion of failure. They’re out there waiting. And if they’re not, then, well… Shun will bring them back no matter the cost. Shun pulls his bandanna back up over his mouth, and Dennis does the same with his scarf. With resolution set strong as steel he reaches, quietly opens the door- and a hand shoots forth from between the gap and slams some sort of cuff onto his wrist.  

“Found you,” says the Red girl with a wicked grin, and drags him into the hallway with the chain of energy that’s sprung to life between them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kakihara tetsuya's voice has ruined my life
> 
> on that note i'm going to post something new on wednesdays this month involving dennis, so two new chapters of all possible worlds (au snippets) and one dennis + grace gen fic. and this is keeping its saturday update schedule, of course


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your words and your actions, they betray your intentions.  
> (If only you didn't insist on wearing so many masks.)

The Red pulls Shun out into the hallway with surprising strength, leaving Dennis to leap out after them and hurriedly assess any outcome where this doesn’t end in her getting carded. He comes up woefully blank- but this girl, at least, doesn’t recognize him properly, won’t plead with him for help at the end of it all.  _Of course_   _she doesn’t know when she’s outclassed._ He thinks as the girl’s disk flashes to life,  _Well. It doesn’t matter_ _as long as_ _we end up near the center of town today._  

“Surrender now if you don’t want to see this friend of yours turned into a card,” she threatens, quite ineffectively with the knowledge of what rests at Shun’s back. Dennis exchanges a quick glance with Shun- seeing someone so incompetent is almost a little refreshing, given their usual enemies of Obelisk Force- but Shun doesn’t share the sentiment. He turns to her with cold eyes, readies himself for a duel, almost as if he’s seeing straight through her, towards the light of their goal at the end of it all.  _Better_ , Dennis thinks,  _than_ _that_ _worry_ _from_ _before._  

Because Shun isn’t allowed to be weak. If he loses his mission then he loses his drive, and Dennis doesn’t want to find out what kind of wildfire his sadness will manifest when it turns explosive to anger. It’s funny, Dennis thinks, because he’s the exact opposite. If there weren’t the missions-  _find the bracelet girl, find out about the Resistance_ \- then he could have gone on forever in that exciting, mundane everyday. Though he supposes Shun  _would have_  if he’d never arrived, if he’d never led Academia in through the cracks, so it’s not really a fair comparison. 

They duel. 

Dennis starts his own disk, not to join in but to watch their backs, the bend in the hall before it turns to the supply closet. Though he doubts that anyone’s coming. Wherever the rest of her lackeys had disappeared to, they certainly won’t be following her anymore, not after being dismissed as collateral. 

So mainly, he watches the duel. Contrary to Dennis’ expectations, it doesn’t seem like the Red has changed her deck at all. Her ace is still Cyber Phoenix, of all cards, a pitiful little 1200 attack thing that leaves the field about as soon as it enters beneath Shun’s onslaught. Unlike its namesake, it doesn’t rise from the ashes of her filled graveyard, either. 

She’s done for in three turns. The chain binding Shun to her disappears in a shower of solid vision glitter, but Shun’s already closing the distance between them again, grabbing her free hand before she can flash back to Academia with the teleport. 

“Hey, let go of me!” she protests, trying to kick out, but Shun’s grip is ironclad. She gives up with a series of ‘ow!’s as Shun twists her arm backwards. Dennis vaguely remembers her comment about breaking their legs, and thinks,  _can’t take what she tries to give out._  

“Ow, ow, stop! What do you want? I’ll do whatever, okay, just, just let me go!” she pleads, but Shun’s grip doesn’t relax, just holds her there. 

“Do you know the Tyler sisters?” Shun hisses, and Dennis is glad he’s standing well behind him- he can’t hide his sudden, blank-faced surprise. If Shun has started to learn the names of Academia’s top students, then- No. He doesn’t waste time thinking about it, listens to the girl’s response instead. 

She lights up at the names despite her situation. “The Tyler sisters? You mean Grace and Gloria? Of course I know them, who doesn-“ 

“Go,” Shun interrupts, and pushes her off, “Tell them that the Spade Branch Resistance is still alive and coming for them.” 

His voice is terribly cold. The girl cradles her arm and backs up, nodding furiously. “Right. Grace and Gloria Tyler. Spade Branch is coming for them. Got it.” 

She waits half a second too long before she turns her back and bolts for the main staircase. Her feet echo heavy down it, long after she's disappeared from sight. Shun and Dennis exchange a wary glance- filled with more questions on Dennis’ part than Shun’s- that ultimately goes nowhere. Shun won’t volunteer what he doesn’t have to, and even Dennis’ usual amounts of prying have a time and a place that isn’t here. He suggests with a tilt of his head, “Go down the back stairs?” 

Shun nods. 

The back stairwell is quiet, light filtering in dim from the dusty windows- caked with that long before the invasion had put another layer of grime on the outside- and there’s no sign of even their tail from Red, though Dennis knows that he’s lurking around somewhere, probably just outside. The quiet doesn’t last long. Halfway down they hear the sound of boots on the concrete, bouncing up the narrow space loud and clear and faster than they’ll be able to duck away. 

Dennis and Shun share another quick glance saying all the things that words would drag on too long, and Dennis pushes past him to the window. They’re only two stories up, and he’s lifted people with Trapeze Magician about that high before- it’ll work. Shun catches on fast and helps him pry open the old thing, probably never once opened since the building was built. Dennis is just grateful that the stairwell has functional windows at all- it had been nice to walk down early in the morning, away from the sickly orange light of the halls, but never did he think they’d be quite this useful. 

“Go,” he hisses, and plays the card. Trapeze Magician sparks forth- thankfully silent- a hand extended to Shun with head slightly bowed. Dennis is fairly sure that if they’d been anywhere close to the ground his card would be kneeling like a knight to their King. He spares a long glance at Trapeze Magician as Shun takes the outstretched hand and floats slow down to the ground of the side alley below.  

The Professor claims cards occasionally act out because of the new solid vision system- eventually, the program learns to imitate the duelist- but it doesn’t seem like the kind of program a man who’d shaped Academia into the place it is now would have created. But it’s a question for another time- the first of the Obelisk Force rounds the corner before Trapeze Magician has even dropped Shun to the ground.  

_Well,_  thinks Dennis, and doesn’t bother to finish the thought before he jumps, dives out the narrow window headfirst. He kind of hopes that Trapeze Magician will sweep up and catch him; in reality that’s nowhere near what happens. Trapeze Magician does move to try and grab him, but it’s much too late- Dennis lands in the trash bin, with the clatter of bent plastic containers and the whoosh of air as the bags release all their excess air. 

Dennis spares one indulgent second to groan, but it’s probably for the best. He knows how to survive a fall from that height without injury, but having Shun as witness would raise questions he doesn’t want to try and concoct answers to on the spot. At least, he thinks, it was the plastics, and not the rotting burnables beside it, long past their collection date. 

Dennis rolls quickly out from the trash bin, part of a tattered bag clinging to his shoulders. He quickly picks it off, though it stirs up a memory of a time he can’t exactly place, too many similar occurrences blurring into one never-ending late summer afternoon- 

_“_ _Why do you need to wear so much of that?” Shun asked, waving at Dennis’ collection of masks and assorted costume parts,_ _currently_ _spilling out of his closet._  

_“It’s easier to get into character.” Dennis pulled a cape out by its corner and swung it around_ _Shun’s_ _sh_ _oulders before he could protest_ _, using_ _his_   _scowl as a flash of inspiration_ _._  " _See? Give it a mask and a hat, and then you’re a mysterious sorcerer far from his homeland, fighting for his life against his former friends.”_  

_“No,” said Shun, pulling off the cloak and throwing it back at Dennis, “I definitely don’t.”_  

The Obelisk Force yell down after them, and Dennis knows they're changing course with every second that he and Shun spend getting their bearings. Dennis pulls Trapeze Magician's card from his disk with a thought of thanks and instead turning to Shun. 

“Let’s go,” Shun says, thankfully avoiding any of the comments he could have made. Instead he turns, setting them on a course towards the amusement park again. 

The streets are swarming with Obelisk Force. There’s no other way to describe them. Rubble-strewn and clamoring with the clinking of gears and boots against the cracked pavement, flashes of blue and bone always out of the corner of their eyes. From the front, the back- it doesn't matter which way they turn. They're either creeping silently away from the enemies ahead, or vanishing into the shadows to lose their pursuers behind. Dennis breathes warm and controlled through the thick fabric of his scarf, and thinks that this will be their final test. 

One wrong step, and they're done for. Because they’re getting closer to Academia’s stronghold outside the amusement park, he can tell Shun is thinking. And that’s a part of it, but it’s certainly not the whole. Dennis can glean meaning from the muttered zones and barked unit numbers in a way that Shun can’t, and they speak of mobilization, of an activity surge. For what purpose Dennis doesn’t know exactly, but he can guess. Academia never did tolerate the idea of Resistance towards its actions. 

Eventually they can’t crawl the back streets any longer with even an echo of a sense of safety; rather than stay and face an ambush, they stage fights on their own terms and with devastating efficiency. In their wake they leave a trail of cards and a bigger commotion each time they’re discovered. Dennis thinks to keep count, but loses track after the tenth duel and the seventeenth card. Life points are much more important figures to keep track of. Dennis grits his teeth and runs through it- he doesn’t have another choice. At his side, Shun seems to relish the reversal, the change of fortunes Academia certainly couldn’t have foreseen.  

They’re both tired, but they duel their way into the high noon sun until they find a wall they finally can’t surpass. Standing halfway down the street, consuming the small buildings at its side is a makeshift barrier, a blockade marking the start of where Academia’s made their headquarters. Obelisk Force hover, guarding its side, and from the way shouts echo down the blockade a moment before the gates open and soldiers flood out to meet them with hounds at their sides, they haven’t missed Dennis stepping carelessly out from an alley.  

Shun pulls him back by the wrist; Dennis returns the grip and falls into the momentum to run the other way. 

“Come on,” Dennis hisses, pulling Shun through a back alley and through the next street, dodging bags of overturned trash that had flown free of their toppled bins. These are the streets he knows the best, and Shun, for once, follows him without protest. Here, the alley where the woman would spread her jewelry across a blanket and peddle her wares every weekend, taking advantage of the tourist crowd. There, the walkway below the bridge where talented kids would bring their guitars and mics and perform their hearts out, less for spare change or passing scouts and more for the love of their songs. Now, dashing past the bus stop that’d become as much a part of his daily routine as morning coffee and dueling and magic.  

This is it, Dennis knows, just one more turn- 

He skids to a halt, Shun close on his heels. A line of Obelisk Force a dozen strong stands waiting, a familiar face before them. 

“See?” says the Red girl, looking all garish pride and false bravado again, “I told you I had intel on where they’d go.” 

She waits a moment for praise; none comes. Her expression flicks down into a pout and she crosses her arms. Dennis steps forwards to duel, and Shun follows his lead without hesitation. In terms of odds, they're at a disadvantage, but it's not nearly so severe enough as to shake their confidence. The Red takes a half step back and says, cross, “Well, what are you all waiting for? They’re right there, so go get them!” 

Dennis can practically feel them rolling their eyes before they take a collective step forwards, allowing her to sneak back behind their defensive line and well down the street, perched atop on overturned garbage collection stall- close enough that she can still watch, far enough that they’ll never catch her when they win. 

“Let’s get this over with,” Shun says. 

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Dennis replies, and draws before any of the Obelisk Force get the chance. 

_De_ _nnis wondered if all their duels would be like this_ _\- exhilarating, well-matched things that had_ _both audience and participants alike breathless and triumphant in turn_ _, riding the high of reversals and last second trumps._ _Not to say that it was simply the luck of the draw that decided it_ _\- rather that their skills were evenly matched despite it._  

_“I can’t duel you again, Kurosaki,”_ _Dennis said, ignoring the rather cross Shun_ _standing before him_   _as he_ _threw the checkered_ _cloth over_ _his old plastic folding table. He hoped Shun wouldn’t ask why- it had been six times over the past week_ _and a half, and_ _four_ _of those had been in shows. “Believe it or not, I just do magic_ _some_ _times_ _, too.”_  

_He glanced up-_ _clearly Shun didn’t_ _believe that at all. Dennis just shrugged and started setting out props. Magic_ _was a skill too, one that had played no small part in his leap from Red to the special classes._ _He was good at it; he l_ _iked it. There wasn’t much more to be said._ _“_ _Magic shows usually take about the same time as duels._ _Come back then, and I’ll find the time.”_  

_Because he wouldn’t turn down the chance to duel Shun if he didn’t have to._ _He’d already proven himself to be a good springboard to test new strategies out on_ _, and given Dennis a few new ideas in the_   _process. Dennis hadn’t been able to get his hands on any rank-up magic back at Academia_ _\- spy or not, actively_ _using_   _Xyz_ _monsters_ _was departing_ _fro_ _m_ _the standard enough-_ _but he_ _wa_ _s sure there_ _wa_ _s one out there somewhere that would suit him_ _and Trapeze Magician_ _. Dennis blinked himself back to the present as Shun flopped down on the bench_ _just_ _beside hi_ _s table_ _, neatly on the half that was covered in shade from the tree above._   _“It’s fine. I’ll wait here.”_  

_“_ _Okay,” Dennis replied,_   _and set down a silk hat quite deliberately atop the table_ _._ _“You know, I’ve been thinking about taking on an assistant, lately.”_  

_Shun scoffed_ _and shot him a glare, somewhat tempered by the way he was leaning back too far on the bench. “Don’t push your luck.”_  

_With a grin Dennis_ _flipped him two coins from thin air. Shun caught them completely unfazed_ _, curling them in his palm as Dennis said, “You can start by getting the two of us some coffee.”_  

_“You couldn’t have asked before I sat down?” Shun asked, but got to his feet anyway, heading_ _towards the vending machine at the outskirts of the park._  

_“I_   _didn’t know you were staying,” Dennis said, as much to_ _himself as to_   _Shun’s_ _back._  

_Shun said something in reply, but it was muffled and lost to a sudden gust of wind that had Dennis’ hat toppling from its place atop the table._ _He gave chase as it rolled across the_ _path and into the tree-lined grass_ _nearby, wondering all the while_ _what_ _Shun’s_ _retort to that had been._  

Shun doesn’t say anything as they finish the duel, a lopsided halo of cards surrounding them, but Dennis knows what he’s thinking-  _shouldn’t have let that girl_ _go_ _. Not for a message that could always be delivered in person._  

A glance down the street confirms- the Red is gone, long since escaped until the next chance she could sweep down upon them like the opportunist she is. “Let’s go,” Dennis say as the sounds of an oncoming patrol start to echo down the road, “It’s close.” 

The creaking snarls of the Antique Gear Hounds start to fade as Dennis drags them up the back stairwell of a building, taking the steps two at a time to the second floor. The landing is a mess, but Dennis kicks the mat aside without a second thought to grab the key sitting conspicuously beneath, jamming it into the lock and slipping inside with a very practiced sense of urgency. 

“Thank you, Sakaki Yusho,” Dennis mutters under his breath, moving to peer out the space between the curtains. Academia’s students and soldiers still roam the streets below, though none of them appear to be moving with much urgency. 

_Lazy_ , Dennis thinks despite himself. He catches sight of the boy from Red, their assigned tail, lurking in the streets below, leaning against a streetlight and idly flipping through the map and plans loaded on his disk. He glances up, catches Dennis’ eye. He shakes his head slightly-  _not yet._  The Red doesn’t react, just keeps flipping through.  

It reminds him of all the times he’d seen Shun do the exact same thing, waiting for Dennis’ classes to let out after they’d inevitably go long. It’s a nostalgic thought, somehow, and Dennis indulges a moment in the memory of spotting Shun and flashing a wink and a wave out the window that Shun saw just as often as he didn’t.  

_"Here," he'd told Shun, scribbling down an address on the back of a weeks-old restaurant receipt the fifth time he'd made his way over to the park of the week only to find Shun already waiting, impatient, "I go to a duel school_ _here. You can wait for me outside. That way you’ll know you’ll catch me._ _"_  

He hadn't really expected Shun to show up; in retrospect, that had been an obvious mistake. They had become rivals, of a sort, even in such a short time. That was, Dennis supposes, just what happens when you meet someone who can match you at every turn. In the present, Shun joins him at the window, and Dennis wonders if  _rivals_  isstill the right word at all. 

(He wonders if it ever really was.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't the fic where I plan on fully exploring this but. dennis' monsters (and specifically trapeze magician) being duel spirits gives me a really intense Dennis emotion every time ;;  
> then again, most things about Dennis do that. so. you know. there's a reason I've written over 100k about this kid.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason he doesn't make promises.  
> (There's a reason that he did, this time around.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sunday update, but chapter ten will still be on saturday evening jst! also we're finally halfway though the wordcount. the next few chapters are on the longer side, heh.

Academia’s patrols still roam the streets for them, the troublemakers that have been a particular thorn in their side. They've bought some time, and the echo of an ache in Shun's ankle thanks him for that. From below there's the sound of yelling, frustrated and confused- " _More cards!"_  

_Didn’t think you’d have your own carding technique turned on you, huh?_ Shun moves to Dennis' side, watches the windows on the other wall through a crack in the curtains. Down the street he can see the path up to the amusement park, the blockade that Academia's constructed in front of it. Dennis has seen it too, he knows, but that's a problem for a few minutes' time. He remarks, casual, “So, I finally get to see the inside of this place.” 

It's plainer than Shun expected, for a school specializing in what Shun assumes is more or less Dennis' particularly dramatic style of entertainment dueling. Desks are pushed in a semicircle around a whiteboard, where a large illustration of various monsters is still mostly intact. Shun recognizes Trapeze Magician standing atop a blue floating chateau, right at the forefront. There are scattered decorations and confetti strewn about a whole section of the tile floor, but otherwise it's nondescript- not exactly like his own classrooms, but close enough. He wonders how long it'll take before he gets to see it bustling and alive again, the way it's meant to be. 

“Too bad there’s no more classes,” Dennis replies, the odd note of melancholy hanging in his voice. It doesn’t suit him, Shun thinks. Irritation at being outplayed, frustration at fumbling a new trick even with an audience of only one, sure. But he shouldn't wear that touch of sadness; it's not his character. 

But that's not true, not really. He's heard it once before, on the steps they'd just climbed. It wasn't even that long ago. (Somehow, it feels like an eternity.) 

“ _I’ve told you,”_ _Yusho_ _said, lecturing Dennis on the back steps of the building, “your duels have no substance. They’re flashy, yes, but_ _-“_  

_“It’s not like he’s a bad duelist,” Shun called up from the base of the steps, and the two startled. Dennis shot him an incomprehensible look, and, before he could wonder if he shouldn’t have interrupted, pressed on. “Sure, there’s no reason he needs to start acting all the time, but it suits him. Let him do what he wants.”_  

_“Oh?” asked_ _Yusho_ _with a quirk of his eyebrow, “And who might you be?”_  

_“It’s_ _-“ Dennis_ _started, but Shun cut him off._  

_He called up the stairs, “His dueling partner. And a friend.”_  

_Yusho_ _looked down at him_ _amused, though not unkindly so. “Then I suppose I should watch the two of you duel sometime. I’m afraid he’s getting tired of the usual rotation.”_  

_“I’ll invite him to class later,” Dennis said, like a promise._ _Yusho_ _seemed to be content to leave him with that, as he nodded and patted Dennis on the shoulder before heading back into the building._  

_“Wasn’t that the guest lecturer for Clover School?” Shun asked as Dennis took the stairs two at a time._  

_Dennis leapt down the last few to land at_ _Shun’s_ _side, and started them off towards the main street. Shun was forced to follow him, his pace the only sign that whatever he had interrupted, it had bothered Dennis somehow. “He’s my teacher. For entertainment dueling.”_  

_Ah,_ _Shun_ _realized, whatever he had interrupted hadn’t just bothered Dennis; it had shaken him. He continued, without giving Shun time to comment, “You don't have to bother showing up. He's always like this. One duel isn't going to change his mind."_  

_Shun scoffed. Disagreements with teachers, at least, he could understand. Dennis probably wanted to change his dueling style about as much as Shun wanted to_ _give up his_ _\- that is to say, not in the least. Hoping to commiserate and with an offer rattling around half-formed in the back of his mind, he said, “Sounds like a shitty tea_ _cher then.”_  

_“He’s not,” Dennis_   _replied with more outright force behind it than Shun thought he’d ever heard out of him. “We just disagree.” Then, with a shrug- “That’_ _s_ _entertainment._ _Two people don’t always like the same things.”_  

_Sure,_ _Shun_   _thought, that's obviously the way it is. But doesn't every entertainer want to be liked by as many people as they can?_  

They watch the windows for a while, like that, back to back and wordless. Under better circumstances he’d be here to keep a pseudo-promise. As it is, he can’t convince himself he’s here for any other reason than the truth. No more wishing for better days, no more doubt to weaken his resolve. The only thing he can rely on is his abilities in the present. But in the future, perhaps, he’ll come back.  

“We need to make a plan,” Dennis says, and Shun nods. They pull back from the windows, drag two chairs out from the desks. Shun lets out a long breath. It's nice to sit down for a while, even if his urges push him to jump from the chair and charge Academia's blockade with reckless abandon. 

"Whatever it is, let's do it tonight," Shun says, unable to deny his impatience entirely. It’s itching under his skin, beneath the dust and the grime caked to his wrists and the sweat on the back of his neck. It’s almost the end. 

"Right," Dennis agrees, and it seems like his mood is catching, because Dennis settles for things with far less protest than he usually does.  

Well, on most points, at least. 

Dennis argues him down for ten minutes about why they can’t make a dash from the side entrance of the barricade, straight through the courtyard before the entrance stalls and lose any tails they gain in whatever’s left of the park, ignoring every single _you’ve never even been inside_  and  _the less time we spend inside the barricade, the better_  that Shun can muster.  

"Sorry," Shun finally gives in without sounding contrite in the least, "it was a bad idea." 

"Not as bad an idea as sticking with you this whole time," Dennis replies, but it doesn't have any venom behind it. 

"You'd be lost without me." 

Dennis doesn't even pretend to humor him. "More like I’d already be at the stadium." 

"Don't flatter yourself," he says, less to put Dennis down and more because he doesn't really want to imagine having to do half the things they've had to do by himself. Not to say he couldn't have done them- just that even he's aware enough to know he'd be hurting even more than he is, if Dennis hadn't been with him through all of it. If he'd been by himself, in that apartment building, he wouldn't have hesitated a second before leaping through the window, and he aches with phantom pain at just the thought of it. 

"I'm really not," Dennis says, in a tone just off enough that it can't be anything but the truth. Shun's only heard it once before; to hear it again here throws him a moment- but Dennis doesn't give him any time to think about it, instead launching himself into a discussion of the next step of their plan. 

Still. In the back of his mind, Shun thinks about that. 

_They didn't duel, that day. Dennis didn't move to put on a show, either, just picked a park seemingly at random and wordlessly paid for vending machine ice cream for the two of them before flopping down on a bench._  

_Shun didn't really know what to do besides follow his lead and accept the ice cream bar with a quiet word of thanks. How Dennis was acting now ... His closest frame of reference was how_   _Ruri_ _got when she was upset with him, withdrawn and prone to shooting him withering glares._  

_Unfortunately, he had much less time_   _to wait Dennis out than he did_ _Ruri_ _._  

_“My duels,” Dennis said, the start of something even he himself didn’t seem to want to finish, “my teacher always says they’re a reflection of the person.”_  

_“Yeah,” Shun agreed, “you’re obnoxiously flashy and don’t know when to quit, even when you’re supposed to be playing a part. What little kid wants to see the villain beat the hero?”_  

_Dennis had the gall to turn up his nose and look offended. He muttered,“Plenty of kids, probably.”_  

_Shun didn’t bother to hide his skepticism in the scathing look he shot Dennis- but he couldn’t let the conversation derail. He was only half done. “But you’re a good duelist._ _And you entertain. All those people don’t come for me, or for whoever you pull from the street. They come and they stay because they want to see you.”_  

_That_ _clearly_ _wasn’t what Dennis was expecting him to say_ _, if the way he stopped_ _with ice cream halfway to his mouth was any indication, a drop trickling down his wrist, unnoticed_ _._ _And it was fair enough for him to be surprised._   _Shun’s_ _dueling was for many purposes- to win, to enjoy himself, to advance and improve- but all that happened regardless of whether he gave his audience what he wanted or not. He could have just as good of a duel whether the audience cared anything for him at the end or not._ _That they were drawn to him regardless was more an effect than a purpose._  

_And Dennis… He wasn’t the opposite, but he had the same pride manifesting in a way not so distant from_ _Shun’s_   _own. He could understand it, at least, respect it as a fellow duelist, if not as a_ _trained_ _entertainer._  

_"Thank you, Shun," Dennis said, finally_ _._  

_Shun waved it off. He hadn't said anything that wasn't true._ _" And I'm showing up to one of your classes eventually. We're going to prove that teacher of yours wrong."_  

_“Pushy,” Dennis_ _proteste_ _d_ _, but it was as good as agreement in_ _Shun's_   _mind._  

_It didn't strike him until much later that it had been the first time Dennis had used his first name._  

"So it's settled," Dennis says, leaning back dangerously far in his chair as he stretches his arms high above his head.  

"Yeah," Shun starts to say, but he's sabotaged halfway through the word by a yawn. He tries to copy Dennis' stretches to wake himself up a bit, but a sudden twinge through his shoulder has him hastily correcting into a long roll of them instead. He'd almost forgotten he'd hit that hard in the blast, too. Pain fades, when he's not thinking about it. 

“Go to sleep,” Dennis insists, and Shun starts to bark out a protest that Dennis doesn’t listen to a moment. He continues, speaking over Shun, “Just do it. When was the last time you slept? Back at the makeshift camp.” 

_I was out when the explosion happened,_  Shun almost wants to protest, but knows better than Dennis that being knocked unconscious doesn’t count as rest. He’s been running on less than nothing for a while now; it explains how foolish he’s been recently.  

“Wake me up tonight. We can go through the blockade then,” Shun demands, and Dennis nods.  

He doesn't expect to be able to sleep, because his mind is burning with an anticipation he can't shake, the embers he's carried all this time finally fanned into a glorious blaze at the final push. But his body demands it, and it drags him under before he even realizes it's happening. 

(He doesn’t remember his dream, but it goes something like this. He’s wandering the desert of a long-abandoned town, the sand shifting fast beneath his feet and the heat of the sun floating up in waves around him.  

"This way," Dennis hisses, waving him into an alley. And suddenly the world isn't so empty anymore. Distance means nothing to the commotion behind him, rapidly closing in. Someone's started to chase him- or perhaps he's always been chased. It doesn't matter.  

What matters now is the present, staging themselves for the advantage in the fight they'll soon be drawn into as Dennis maneuvers them through the streets of his home he knows better than even Shun- but this isn't his home. And there's more. Words, inconstant, gibberish that makes no sense but that his dreaming mind parses meaning from- 

He wakes up to a hand shaking his shoulder, and remembers no more.) 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's better to part kindly on falsehoods than break with the truth.  
> (But the magic loses its glamour, the moment you understand the trick.)

They’re too close to linger. Under the cover of darkness they sneak from Sakaki Yusho’s old duel school, Dennis locking its doors with a quiet click. It’s the least he can do with the last shreds of loyalty to his favorite teacher, no matter their disagreements. 

Because maybe it's the place, maybe it's the finish line lingering just beyond their sights- but Dennis had done more thinking than he probably should have keeping guard, watching the streets as their tail from Red had eventually wandered off to the comfort of Academia's blockade, as the patrols had retreated back behind the barricade, as hours had slipped by with the setting of the sun. 

Kurosaki Shun is dangerous. Dennis has, on some level, always recognized this; he would never have started a show with someone he thought was incompetent. But  _no_ , Dennis thinks, staring at the outline of the Academia disk in the bag slung over Shun’s shoulder, Kurosaki Shun is  _dangerous_. 

If Shun finds out that he’s Academia now, no amount of tearful stories of suffered cruelty and recent defection will keep him from getting carded in his sleep. Dennis had never been keen on actually carding anyone- though those he’s had to threaten never have known that- but it’s starting, in the grand scheme of things, to look like a valid option. If Shun is going to stand in the way between him and Ruri, then he might not have another choice.  

“Something wrong?” Shun asks, pausing beneath an alley overhang. Dennis, pulled from his thoughts, almost bumps into Shun before he takes a step back and shakes his head. 

“Just hoping nothing goes wrong,” he says as Shun leans forwards with narrowed eyes, considering him with something sharp lingering in his gaze. He doesn’t register how close Shun has come until he’s there, hovering closer than he has any right to- so Dennis surges up and kisses him. He can feel Shun's struggle- the initial instinct to pull back, the moment Shun decides to meet him there, and the moment he pulls back for real.  

“And we’re still not going to talk about it?” Dennis teases, just to watch Shun turn his back and pretend that he’s not more flushed than Dennis with a sharp ' _no'_. 

But he doesn't deny it. "After," he says, and leaves Dennis floundering behind him as he sets off again towards the barricade. 

_After_ , echoes his voice in Dennis ears, and he wonders exactly what he’s supposed to make of that.  

They creep closer, silent side by side. The barricade is quiet, but certainly not asleep- the telltale sighs of guards and the idle motions of the sleepless give away the positions of the guards on their patrols.  

Overhead the multicolored flags flap lazily in the chill night breeze, muted in the darkness that has overtaken Heartland. Dennis remembers how loud this street used to be after sundown, filled with rowdy children clutching their parents' hands and young couples wasting away the late hours, holding the ruby gems of heart-shaped souvenirs that glinted under the streetlights.  

They’d never ended up going to the amusement park, despite Shun’s instance that Dennis needed to try the duel coasters at least once while he was in Heartland and Dennis’ ever-present desire to increase his repertoire through observation of other performers. And there really wasn't an excuse for it. Dennis had made more than enough in generous tips from his shows to cover the cost, though privately he'd always delighted in the idea of putting it on Academia's dime under the premise of  _scouting_. 

_It’s a shame,_  Dennis thinks now, looking out at the coaster track broken at its height,  _it would have made a nice date._ _Even if he wouldn’t_ _exactly_ _call it that._  

He can picture it so easily, dream-hazy and overly-saturated in all the ways that matter. They’d make a beeline for the duel coasters first thing, and whoever else was on the ride with them wouldn’t even be a threat. In the end it would be the two of them, ace verses ace and trump versus trump. (He would win, but Shun would have the upper hand until the last moment. All his Fusion cards would sit obedient at the bottom of his deck, never once to be drawn.) They’d loop around the walkways and try every flavor of popcorn at least once, and spend too much on dinner at one of the restaurants- and Dennis would make it his treat, insist it's worth the price when Shun would inevitably try and refuse. 

Instead they had gone shopping. And, well. He can see the evidence of that just fine. 

_“_ _I need to get a present," Shun said_ _, not a moment after Dennis had_   _waved_ _him down from the crowd._  

_"For me?" Dennis joked, and Shun sent him a glare he most definitely deserved before turning his attention back to the shops lining the_ _covered_   _street._  

_"No," Shun said, "for my sister. You seem like you'd be good at finding presents."_  

_Dennis had no idea where Shun had gotten that idea from, but he supposed_ _it was a simple enough request._  

_“Well,” Dennis started, “What does_ _Ruri_ _like? I’ve never met her.”_  

_Shun frowned_ _. “She wears a lot of jewelry. I was thinking I would get her a necklace, or something. The chain on her old one broke.”_  

_“But what_ kind? _” Dennis stressed._ _Shun was in that particular mood that Dennis wouldn't call willfully unhelpful so much as assuming that those around him know just as much as he did. In Dennis' case, this was often true,_ _so_ _he_ _supposed he_ _couldn't really protest._  

_“Silver? You know what she usually wears.” Shun replied, and he was either avoiding the issue, or, given that he’d asked Dennis here specifically to help him buy a present for_ _Ruri_ _, it was possible that he didn’t realize…_  

_Dennis let_ _out an exasperated breath- “Shun_ _,” he said_ _, slow and precise, “I’ve never seen your sister._ _Unfortunately, I'm not a mind reader in real life."_  

_Shun rummaged_ _in his side deck holder for a mom_ _ent, then pulled out a photo. It wa_ _s a group shot_ _, Shun and a boy with_ _Yuuri’s_ _face crowded around the smiling girl in the center. It was busy, taken against some amusement park ride just blurred streaks of light in the background, and the lighting pitch dark at the edges. But Dennis could_ _see it clearly- the winged bracelet with yellow gem cradled between two wings, around the wrist of the_ _bright_ _girl in the center throwing up a peace_ _sign_ _. He f_ _roze and thought_ _, mouth_   _caught halfway towards words he’d already forgotten,_  So the show’s over. 

_(_ _Funny, how lately it hadn't even felt like much of a show at all- more a_ _ple_ _a_ _sant_ _routine_ _he'd started to forget he'd have to leave_ _._ _)_  

_Shun nudged him; Dennis realized that he'd been staring what must have been an inappropriately long time._  

_"Earrings," he blurted out, largely because he wanted to avoid saying 'bracelet'._ _It wouldn't have meant anything to Shun, not then- but one day it might have. Dennis couldn't discount the possibility._ _"_ _The way she wears her hair, you can get her short ones and they'll show, or long ones and they won't get tangled in her hair._ _"_  

_"Earrings,"_ _Sh_ _un_ _repeated, then nodded. "Okay. Let's look for those."_  

Academia's blockade is hastily constructed but solid, a checkpoint designed to divide the city at its easiest crossing point. He's adamant there's no way they're sneaking in through its makeshift gates- but there's a mostly empty building just beside one of its corners that's sparsely guarded and filled with enough debris to cover Dennis as he creeps through the back door, searching for the guard he knows must be somewhere in the building.  

He finds them on the second floor, an Obelisk Force member leaning lazily against the fire escape window, glancing out at the alley below. Dennis frowns- that's a problem, but a possibility he'd accounted for. Dennis retreats back into the stairwell slightly, shoves a chunk of piping fallen from the ceiling down them with a series of echoing clangs that has the startled Obelisk Force member jolting away from the window. 

That's the cue- just as the rings of the hollow pipe's fall start to fade and the Obelisk Force member starts to approach, Shun leaps through the window and knocks out the guard with a swift jab to the back of the neck. Dennis watches the guard for a moment, making sure he won't stand again, then says- "Good timing." 

"Glad you planned for it." Shun shrugs, then crosses the room to join him. Dennis pries open the window and climbs out onto the small patio area, dodging the broken lines for hanging laundry blowing in the gentle breeze.  

Dennis stares down at the blockade and wishes, not for the first time, that he had never had the idea to stay with Shun through the invasion. It would be much easier to walk up to the gates and simply be let in like their tail had done a few hours earlier, realizing that Dennis wasn't going to steal back the disk at any point when he could be held solely responsible.  

"Are you ready?" Shun breathes- they only have one shot at this. If they miss the jump, if the patrol atop the barricade spots them, they're done for. Or Shun is, at the very least, and that's something that Dennis would rather avoid. It would make his cover story terribly awkward, Dennis thinks, if he arrives at the Resistance base to deliver Ruri the news of her brother's disappearance only to steal her away a night or two later. 

(Well, there are certainly other reasons too, but he's been told those are a matter for  _after_ , and so doesn't bother to think of them now. Pushing away everything but what the person before him needs to see, needs him to be- he's always been good at that.) 

Dennis nods, and together they made the jump, off the rusty rail to land soundless atop the barrier. The guards, stationed on their far corners, don't notice a thing. From here it's all theory. Dennis can take a guess at how the inside is structured, but it's no better than any Shun could make, so he lets Shun take the point as they sneak around the edge of the barricade. Shun takes out the guard leaning bored against the outer wall with a practiced ease of his jabs.  

He's gotten good at this, since they first set out together. Academia's training has made Dennis agile and taught him how to slip out of most any situation- but if Shun ever catches him in a close-quarters fistfight, well... It's a good thing they're both duelists. 

They make it halfway down the wall, crouched down close in the shadows. Then, a cry from behind them- irritated like a barked-out order, not yet understanding what had happened- "Hey! Get up! Don't bother volunteering for night duty if you're going to sleep on it!" 

There are no places on this barrier that they can hide. Shun must reach the same conclusion that Dennis does, because he rushes forwards to the ladder propped up against the side of the makeshift wall and slides carefully down into the courtyard. They have no choice but to chance it. Dennis slides down after him, but they're not fast enough- atop the wall someone shouts at them, then barks an order- 

And the courtyard is flooded with the harsh glow of the searchlights, drowning out the gentle generator glow of the warm, heart-motif lights. They land amongst boxes, neatly packed and taped up. Even without markings on their sides, Dennis knows without looking what's inside them. Binders upon binders full of cards. He wonders, just a thought pricking at the back of his mind, if any of Shun's creation have joined them. 

They press their backs to the boxes and stare out with heads just barely peeking out from the side sof them. Around them the remaining Obelisk Force move, woken to action by the blinding light. There's activity  _everywhere_ , soldiers racing towards their posts, and the two of them are caught up at the outskirts, with no other option but to charge straight into the brunt of it. 

Still, Dennis hesitates. This isn’t right- this doesn’t match up with all the information that Dennis had overheard on their way here, and certainly not with what he’d known from before, plans long deleted. But then again, he thinks,  _nothing_  has been going according to plan, ever since that Yellow handed him that note. 

He starts to wonder if he isn’t being tested, somehow. And if he is, he can’t fail. If he does, Academia would take everything away- every privilege, every freedom, every place he’s painstakingly carved himself out to belong. 

(They’d take away Trapeze Magician. His symbol who protects his life until the very end, for whom the others would fall to the grave, duel after duel. He loves Force Witch, feels terrible for relegating her to the bottom of his extra deck where she'll never be seen, but she's not the same- even with all the time he'd spent with her as his ace in Academia, the emotions aren't quite comparable. Right at the moment of summoning, of turning the tides, of declaring the attack that'll lead to certain victory- the resonance there is different. Not bad, just not the same. 

He can’t let that happen.)    

At his side, Shun watches the Obelisk Force as they gather, waiting for the moment they can make a break for the ticket gates- Shun's gaze is set on the park, while Dennis' flickers to the outskirts. The wall isn't high- high enough that the impact will probably reinjure Shun's ankle, but not high enough that they both wouldn't make it out seriously harmed- 

Shun dashes forwards, leaving Dennis in his wake without so much as a word of warning. Dennis doesn't waste his breath on calling after him, just resigns himself to it and narrows the distance between them. 

They burst into the plaza, and Dennis’ world crawls to an abrupt halt. The broken rails of the duel coaster hang a skeleton above them, its bones fallen into the plaza below and pushed to the edges to make room for Academia’s arrivals.  

Generators sit at intervals, cords crossing across the plaza in an array of yellows, reds, and greys, the Obelisk Force fanned out blue between them- 

And in the center of it all, Yuuri.  

Shun freezes beside him as Yuuri fixes a sharp gaze on them, pinning them to the spot. He says, sounding so terribly, unbelievably betrayed- “Yuuto?” 

Yuuri smiles, shrugs, and replies flippant, “Obviously not. Your kind of duelists aren’t allowed at Academia.” 

The gaze Yuuri fixes on Dennis a moment later is a little too knowing for Dennis’ liking. He knows what kind of person Shun comes off as, especially trying to execute a plan like this- made reckless by arrogance, prone to assumptions, and perhaps needing a few lessons in the importance of self-preservation. 

But he’s also sharp. There’s not much of a chance that he missed Yuuri’s look, and Dennis can only play his part and hope Shun dismisses it as unimportant. Yuuri quirks his head a bit, just enough that Dennis understands his meaning. 

So Yuuri wants to talk. 

Dennis glances around- at the Obelisk Force steadily bearing down, waiting for Yuuri's command, at the still-open gates at the other end of the plaza, that momentary falter in Shun's unstoppable momentum beside him.  

Dennis returns Yuuri's unspoken question with a meeting of eyes.  

That can be arranged. 

Dennis grabs Shun's hand and bolts towards the far end of the courtyard, racing past the ticket booths, slipping between two of the nearest Obelisk Force thrown off guard by the sudden movement. A few chase them, and the number only increases with every second that passes. 

"Close the gate," Yuuri says after a suspiciously long delay, and a few of the Obelisk Force repeat the order at a yell. It takes too long for the gate to begin to fall, and Dennis spares the half second to wonder if that's Yuuri's doing too, or if he got lucky and someone had left their post in the confusion. When it moves it moves in tiny spurts, groaning all the while.  

Dennis drags them all the way to the gate before Shun digs his heels in and resists- so he can already guess what Dennis is going to say. It's of no matter. He says it anyways- he has to. "I'll hold them off." 

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Shun says, readying himself for the first wave of duelists.  Thier gazes sweep over the advancing forces, coming with duel disks ready. There's more Obelisk Force here than Dennis can count. The two of them could probably manage it- but that's not the point. 

"I know," Dennis says, turning to face Shun, and shoves him back with all his might.  

The second Shun is through them, the metal blinders fall hard to the ground, sealing them away, apart. The timing is perfect, as if it had been scripted- it allows him a glimpse of Shun’s affronted expression, crossed with something Dennis can’t quite catch before it’s gone. From the opposite side, Shun bangs on it once, twice, the metal echoing hollow between them as the Obelisk Force starts on him- and they actually  _duel_  him, the bastards- but the pounding ceases as the turns grind on and Dennis weathers the hunting dogs one after the other. 

The Obelisk Force's attack, on the other hand, doesn’t. And Dennis doesn’t blame them, really- he knows better than they ever could that it would be just like Shun to suddenly leap down from the top of the barrier to join the duel, despite Dennis’ act of heroic sacrifice. 

_No_ , Dennis thinks,  _he’s_ _really not_ _the type to accept that._  Maybe that's just to be expected of someone whose instant reaction to a loss, rather than accept it with grace, is to demand a rematch. Dennis allows himself a little half-smile at the thought. 

“That’s enough,” Yuuri finally calls, right as Dennis is on the verge of a one turn two kill- impeccable and purposeful timing, a prelude to the conversation to come. The Ancient Gears disappear in a shower of solid vision sparks, and his own monsters follow a moment after, Trapeze Magician and Shadow Maker vanishing silent. Yuuri waves the Obelisk Force away, with some reluctant confusion they disperse, back to their posts. 

“You don’t have the bracelet girl,” Yuuri observes as he approaches. Dennis smiles, placid. Yuuri plays too easily off displays of emotion. Dennis is fairly sure it’s part of another game of his, but has always thought it better not to ask. 

“No.” 

Yuuri waves a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter. The Tyler Sisters confirmed her presence inside the stadium, with the a group of the Resistance. The Professor says that infiltration is no longer necessary. We just need to catch her in a mousetrap.” 

In a way, it’s a relief to hear. No more charades, no more talking about defeating Academia and rebuilding Heartland as if he’ll be here to see it. In another way, the pain of a mask torn from him too soon digs in close over his heart. The personas that fool the most are the ones born of just enough truth to give form to the fiction, and this one was perhaps the closest to himself that he’s ever put on. 

It's for the best, Dennis decides. It means that Shun won’t go looking for him like the fool he’s proved himself to be a hundred times over, means he won’t have to stain his hands fighting a battle that could go either way. "Are we going to scout it out before sunrise?" 

Yuuri smiles, in the way that implies that he and Dennis are sharing a secret. He's not sure what it's about, exactly, but he can guess. He absolutely doesn't want to think about it, either way. That's not a part of the person he needs to be around Yuuri. "The sooner the better, don't you think?" 

Dennis doesn't trust himself to agree to that. Instead he shrugs. "Whatever you say." 

They wait a while before they head to the stadium. Yuuri is forced to wave away a report about the commotion Dennis and Shun's little stunt had caused, and a group of yellows come in panicked and nerves shot, chattering over each other about a group of Resistance moving fast through the city. Yuuri takes the opportunity to shove the work onto one of the Obelisk Force leaders while they can't protest, and together they're off. 

They leap across battered rooftops, silhouetted by the moon- It's easier to travel without risk of being spotted by the fringe Resistance camps, their eyes set firmly on the ground below, and the two of them have always shared an affinity for high places.  

He doesn't look for Shun on the ground. (He hopes Shun has no reason to look up, tonight.) 

It was foolish of the Resistance to choose a place so exposed for their main base- but then again, Dennis thinks, most people can't scale a roof like this. Not without the harshest of Academia's training exercises, at least. Together they perch at the cracked edges of the stadium roof, watching with feigned interest the movements of the Resistance below. Dennis shifts, careful not to let the moon stretch his shadow down into the stadium floor. 

The base is quiet, but still moving with scattered activity. Near the entrance a group of Resistance sit in huddled clumps, eating something from chipped bowls. A few people wind their way sleepless between the tents- or perhaps they're internal guards, ready to keep the peace if there's fighting, or stealing- Dennis knows well how thin resources are stretched with the suddenness of the invasion. Desperation does things to good people. Somewhere below, a child starts to cry, loud wails that are soon quieted to match the uneasy atmosphere wafting up from the camp. 

And joining the ranks of the sleepless as the main doors swing open is the vaguely familiar frame of Kurosaki Ruri, flanked by the boy with Yuuri's face and a few others he doesn't recognize. A girl runs up to them from a passing group, begins speaking in a whisper that has no hope of carrying. 

"That's her," he says, not bothering to point, "the one with the long hair that just walked in." 

Yuuri hums. "The Professor doesn't want witnesses. How fast can we get her alone, I wonder?" 

It is not a question that is meant to be answered, yet he leaves Dennis with no choice but to give him one. “Yuuri,” he asks, watching the Resistance members move like ants through their makeshift base through the hole in the roof, “Can you do me a favor?” 

Dennis doesn't turn his gaze from the stadium, but in the corner of his vision, he catches Yuuri's expression- smug, like he's just won whatever game they'd been playing. When he answers, it's too kind. "Of course." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter starts the final arc! still quite a few flashbacks left though.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunions, things best left muted to the dark.  
> (Reunions, shining like a beacon through the night.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 111k later and I'm finally out of nano hell, so I should be able to give these last few chapters a little bit more editing than the last few. Thanks for sticking with me ;;

Shun runs. He runs, but not away- as fast as he can he searches the outer perimeter of the barricade, tries scaling a particularly rough patch and ends up with splinters in his palms for his trouble. It’s not fast enough. Even with the midnight wind beneath his wings, the Obelisk Force always catches up, always forces him to leave a splay of cards in his wake like breadcrumbs straight to him. But there’s nothing he can do. The second he starts picking them up for trophies or accolades or whatever the hell Academia’s students collect them for, he’s no better than them. His intentions, his self-preservation don't matter- that's where he's chosen to draw the line. 

Yet still. 

“I’m not leaving you here,” he hisses, even as he’s driven away, away, down the streets towards the stadium. Farther from one, closer to two others. Even as he turns his back and runs, he bites out- “I’m coming back for you.” 

He can tell the moment he steps through to Resistance-controlled territory from the way the atmosphere shifts, from the way the shadows turn from tense to desolate. Though they must fight tooth and nail over the boundary lines, today it’s here, and today, the stadium looming close a few blocks down, Shun lets out a long breath and lets the grip on his stolen disk loosen just the slightest. He’s almost surprised that he hasn’t worn his grip into it already, with how much he’s been using it. 

The streets are quiet, but not dead- some of the places he and Dennis had walked together the days before looked like ghost towns from the world's end, where their feet had kicked up dust with every step and every breath felt like disturbing air that hadn't been breathed for decades. It's all a fallacy, of course- but there used to be hardly a place Shun could go without running into someone, giving a pleasant nod as he passed. That's the Heartland he wants to see again. 

And here there's a thrum of that life, an echo of something forced from sight but not lost- never lost. 

“Stop!”  

The cry is hard and low; Shun draws slowly to a stop, scanning the street and the half-boarded up windows above for the source. He answers, slow and clear- "I'm here to join." 

Another voice scoffs with little humor. Shun thinks it's somewhat of a miracle that the figure sauntering down the street can find  _any_. "Sorry if we don't really believe that nowadays." 

"And what is that?" asks the third boy creeping from the shadows, duel disk at the ready on his arm.  

_What does it look like?_   Shun doesn’t spit out, because these aren’t the people he wants to edge into a fight. “One of Academia’s disks. It has the carding program on it. And we can use it.” 

"Why do you have it?" The third boy asks. He looks frail, but his voice is honed as a blade, his posture confident that his dueling can back it up. If there was ever any question, that alone would dispel it.  

This is it, Shun thinks, this is what he's been waiting for this entire time. No more running, no more cowards who insult the name of duelists. He says, meeting that will with his own, "I stole it. The original owner doesn't need it anymore." 

"Oh?" says the second boy, stopping in a few long strides to lean down and examine the disk. Shun carefully pulls it away when he reaches out to tap it with a finger. 

"Don't mess with it," comes the warning- the first voice that had called out to him. He turns his head just slightly, keeping everyone in his peripherals. Walking out of a shop is a tall young man, and suddenly it clicks- they're all from Diamond. The young man continues- "We need to confirm what the truth is first. I don't have to tell you that having that program will be a great asset to us."   

"It's true," Shun says, and the three consider him with sharp eyes. The last of them stops before him, holds out a hand expectant for the disk. Shun doesn't move to hand it over- not until they're safe. Not until he knows for sure that it'll get to the Resistance base. 

"Wait," says a familiar voice, and from the back of the group a short girl previously gone unseen pushes their way forwards. She says, pulling down her hood, "I know him. It's okay, he's from Spade. Ruri's brother, Kurosaki Shun." 

A ripple of recognition goes through them, and Shun faintly acknowledges it in his peripherals as he takes in the girl before him.  

"Sayaka?" Shun asks, though he already knows. The girl before him looks, somehow, even more timid than the girl who had stood across the field from Ruri and coached herself into a victory the day of their disastrous first meeting. But that had been a long time ago, even before all of this. His first impressions had done her a disservice, if she's still roaming these streets. 

"Ruri," he says, because there's no time for anything else, "Ruri, is she-" 

"She's fine. She's at our base in the stadium now." Sayaka's reply is kind, but the words are urgent, fall over each other in the same haste that Shun's had. And that confirmation of the beliefs that have dragged him through the past two weeks- they’re everything. 

He tries not to let it show on his face, but perhaps Sayaka has grown to know him better than he thought, over the course of her friendship with Ruri, because she turns to the assembled Resistance and says, quietly, “Please let him through. They’ve all been searching so long.” 

The third boy looks him over once more, then relaxes. He’s younger than Shun originally thought- closer to Ruri’s age than his- not that they’re very far apart in the first place, but it’s just another reminder of how everyone’s had to grow up. They’re fighters in the Resistance, now. No more time to be children. 

“Okay,” says the boy, glancing up at his brothers in confirmation, “you can go. Do you know the way?” 

Shun nods; they wave him forth. He’s close- he can’t force himself to walk. He runs the last few blocks, that last lingering bit of pain from his ankle the only thing keeping him from sprinting. The stadium that looms before him doesn't have the electric sheen of its lights to look pleasant with multi-colored illumination; to Shun, it's still the most inviting place he's seen in weeks. 

He stands before the doors. There are guards stationed outside, but these two girls recognize him immediately, wave him through with tight expressions. One of them was just a novice duelist, starting out her very first duels under the guidance of the other. He notes as he passes that she no longer looks so innocent, no longer the novice practicing her way through the rules with a playful spirit.  

Well. He's known that they've all been changed in one way or another for a long time now. He can't pity the losses of someone else, only add fragments of their flame to his own and pour oil over the wildfire.  

With a firm hand he takes hold of one of the handles, wiped almost clean from hand after hand upon them. He doesn’t remember any of his dreams-turned-nightmares, just throws open the doors and steps through.  

The interior is not what he’s expecting. The lobby had always been cluttered with people loitering before or after events. Now it's a maze of half-empty boxes stacked one atop the other, filled with various boxes and cans and bags in various stages of order. A few younger kids riffle through them, moving things from one to the other while a few adults supervise from afar.  

Shun doesn't linger, just pushes his way through the main doors. The stadium floor is much like where he and Dennis had begun- lined with clusters of tents all the way to the far wall, blankets thrown over the hard plastic seats in the rows above. Red banners hang from the balcony, flapping lazily in the slight breeze from where part of the roof had fallen away.  

As much as he's willing to, he can't go through every single tent to try and find Ruri; his best bet is to ask the next person he sees passing through to the water pump. He doesn't have to wait long; from a parallel row someone passes through with a sigh. And, impossibly-  

“Ruri,” Shun says, and Ruri turns, her eyes frozen wide and mouth caught in a little round ‘o’ of surprise. 

“Shun?”  

He nods, sharp, in a rush, and Ruri carefully, deliberately, sets the basket in her arms on the ground. She slowly settles it down, pats it carefully to ensure it won’t fall over, then runs to Shun with a wild energy all the opposite of her usual grace. She wraps him up in a hug that betrays her strength- possessed in the days before, tempered in the days after. 

“You made it,” she says, and there is so much meaning in those three words that Shun can’t acknowledge it with anything more than a gruff, ‘yeah’, muttered into the top of her head. Yuuto rounds the corner between the tents and almost drops his armful of linens, but recovers just in time. Shun snorts a little at the sight of it, and pulls back to ruffle Ruri’s hair. It says everything that she doesn't put up any of her usual protest at the touch. 

“I’m glad you’re safe. They told me Spade fell,” he says. He doesn’t need to specify who. Ruri’s eyes flash dark and troubled before defiant again. 

“Spade isn’t dead,” she says, holding up her arm, duel disk battered and proud, “It never was. Just gathering its strength again. Yuuto and I have been looking for other members that were scattered when the Tyler sisters raided our hideout. Most of us ran here, but not everyone.” 

“Speaking of gathering people,” Yuuto starts, slowly and deliberately, “where’s… The two of you were together when it happened, right?” 

They were. Shun remembers it clearly, the moment where the steps of the Golems shook the earth and shattered the city with the rending of steel and shattering of stone. When they'd been returning in the evening, slipping out of the shopping district with a bag around Shun's wrist and an unusually strained Dennis. When the first quake had come in a flash of blue, far in the distance by the tower, then impossibly close as they'd stuck to each other's sides in the shadow of the giants. And for a moment- just a moment in those first few hours of chaos, he'd thought he'd lost Dennis entirely, but- 

“He’s coming,” Shun replies, because he doesn’t want to believe the opposite. It did him no good with Ruri and Yuuto, and it’ll do him no good now. “He was trapped on the other side of the blockade at the amusement park, but he’s coming.” 

His tone leaves no room for disagreement; Yuuto and Ruri nod. It must, Shun realizes with abrupt flatness, been exactly what they’d been saying about him all this time. They all realize it, but Yuuto starts talking before they can have the time to dwell on it. It's a road that doesn't lead anywhere pleasant. "Ruri and I are running a unit ourselves. We can make sure we look for him when we go out." 

Yuuto and Ruri exchange a glance like routine, then a nod- it's likely what they've been doing since they got here. Speaking the same reassuring words, meaning them every time. He hopes, for everyone's sake, that they'd been able to keep their word so far. 

"And you're joining us," Ruri says with finality, as if he would have ever done something different, "So if you see him, you can point him out and we'll help right away, okay? It doesn't matter what our mission is. If we can help a friend, we won't hesitate." 

"Hold on," Shun says, rummaging through his pockets, "I have a picture somewhere." Or at least he knows he did, before all of this. He recalls with the same grudgingly exasperated amusement that has come to color so many of his interactions with Dennis the day he'd been dragged into a photo booth, placated only with the promise that Dennis would pay for it all. The photos they'd taken that day had come out more decorated with virtual stickers and tacky effects than actual pictures. Dennis had probably come up with the idea just to irritate him, at first, but his manner had morphed into something genuine, after a while. 

And Shun doesn't get it, really. He's been dragged into enough photos by Ruri to understand the routine by now. It's not like his weak protesting really meant it was irritating him- which, unfortunately, Dennis had well and truly caught onto by then. Dennis had only waved the decorating pen at him chidingly when he'd asked. "We don’t have these where I'm from. They're interesting." 

Shun doesn't bother toning down his sarcasm. "You must have had a sad childhood." 

Dennis doesn't even turn around to acknowledge him this time. "Not as bad as yours. I still have a sense of fun." 

The time limit expired; Dennis waited about as impatiently as Shun for the printer at the bottom of the booth to spit out their photos. He'd torn the strips carefully along the lines, handed one to Shun and pocketed the other. It's lucky he'd taken it with him, that day- 

_"_ Oh, no," Ruri says suddenly, throwing him from his memory half-recalled, "it's fine. You're talking about that duelist magician at the park, right?" 

Shun stops- he can feel the glossy photo strip between his fingers, crumpled but presumably otherwise intact in his pants pocket. "I didn't realize you know him." 

Either Ruri doesn't hear anything in his tone or she's too polite to comment. With her, it could be either and he'd never really know unless she decides to tell him. She shrugs, then says, "Not really? I don't know him as well as you do. I went to his show, once. I kind of wanted to try dueling him, since you think he's so good. It was just a magic show, though." 

"He said he'd never seen you before." He can't think of any reason Dennis would have to lie- unless he'd simply forgotten, by the time they had gone to buy Ruri's present, but Shun doubted that Dennis was the type to forget a face so easily. Especially not one related to- 

"I didn't go up and introduce myself. I just stood at the very back and watched. It doesn't surprise me," Ruri explains, again breaking into his thoughts, "There was a big crowd, that day." 

Shun doesn't say anything immediately- all the questions he has aren't ones that she can answer. She adds, after a moment, "It was fun. I'm glad I went." 

Finally, Shun nods. "It usually is." 

"We'll find him, okay?" Ruri smiles. It's tired, but optimistic. "Recovery is our specialty. And you were just with him, so there's a narrow radius to search." 

"I never did get back to him on our promise to duel," Yuuto chimes in, "I figured I'd take him up on it when you eventually brought him around, but..." 

He never had properly introduced Dennis to Ruri and Yuuto, never brought him around to the Kurosaki house- which was small, given the amount of space he, Ruri, and their grandmother took up- but certainly larger than Dennis' tiny apartment. And why hadn't he? At first, it had been because they weren't close enough. Tracking someone down through the city for duels constituted a few things, but Shun had been assured many a time from Ruri that for most people, that wasn't exactly the basis for a friendship.  

He had brought it up, once- invited him along to Ruri's early birthday party. Dennis had been busy- stuttered out an excuse about having to meet his teacher again for an extra lesson; he hadn't had time to really bring it up again.  

“Do you remember,” Ruri begins suddenly, and both Yuuto and Shun turn to look at her, “the last time we went to the amusement park together?” 

It's almost as if Ruri has been reading his mind. Of course they all do- it had been only a few days before the invasion, an early surprise celebration of Ruri’s birthday with tickets Yuuto had won at a tournament. Ruri had invited Sayaka along, so their fourth ticket wouldn't go to waste. 

_"Here," Sayaka said, holding out a small package, wrapped in delicate_ _lavender_ _packaging and looped twice in gold ribbon._ _Ruri_ _pulled it open delicately, pulling the ribbon and nearly_ _pulling_ _the tape away from the paper, then gasped down at the card that lay inside._  

_Ruri_ _threw her arms around Sayaka in a warm hug. "Thank you! I've been searching for this card forever. Where did you find it?"_  

_Sayaka returned the hug a little tentatively, as if she hadn't quite been expecting it- still, she returned the warmth, self-_ _consciousness_ _written clear across her flustered face. "I just had to search for it a little._ _Don't worry about it."_  

_Ruri_ _half-turned to Shun- a motion subtle enough that no one else could read it for what it was, save Shun, who'd been dealing with it for the entirety of his life._  

_“Your present from me_ _is on your actual birthday,” Shun said, and_ _Ruri_ _frowned_ _, likely realizing he hadn’t gone out and bought anything yet._ _In his defense,_ _Yuuto's_ _gift was about as hard to beat as they came_ _, and then Sayaka, too..._  

_“Well,” she said, “I guess that makes sense too._ _"_  

It had been a good day, Shun remembers. Warm and bright, bathed in good sentiment. Shun also remembers the box, and pulls it out before anyone can move to comment. 

"Here," Shun says, and holds out the battered box. The sleek silver of the wrapping paper has ripped in several places, exposing the dented cardboard of the box inside, and Shun had long since pulled the ribbon from it himself, in order to fit it in his side deck.  

Ruri blinks down at the box blankly for a moment, as if she hasn't yet processed exactly why he'd shoved it at her. Then, caught completely off-guard, "That's not what I meant." 

He shakes it, just a little- enough to jostle the contents a bit but not enough to ruin them. A silent prompt to accept it. Ruri takes it with tentative hands, gently pulls the tape from the paper and tugs off the cardboard lid. Inside is a pair of feather earrings, white and blue and as unruffled as the day he'd bought them. Seeing them again is like seeing a little piece of the world before, the last thing righted in the wake of the storm. 

"Thank you," Ruri says, and throws her arms around him for the second time that day. The earrings jostle against the confines of their box as Shun returns her hug, but they don't fall.  

(If Ruri's shoulders start to shake, if her breath comes out in uneven little puffs and half-gasps of twin sadness and relief, then, well- 

Shun won't tell another soul.) 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eyes at your back, watching from all sides. What they think matters not, so long as it ends.  
> (What you've created wasn't an escape- all along, you've been weaving yourself a trap.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I looked at this chapter and then realized I didn't actually finish off most of the scenes ;;

The target doesn't leave the stadium in any kind of configuration that he can break. Or rather, that he and Yuuri can break without a decent amount of their own turned cards in their hands, because it’s not for lack of trying on behalf of the pawns Yuuri keeps throwing into the fray. Why Yuuri expects them to be able to do anything, Dennis doesn't know- he and Shun had done enough damage on their own, and with two capable duelists backing him instead of just one, card counts are finally increasing to the point where the higher-ups are starting to realize they might have a problem. 

Perhaps Yuuri is just bored. Dennis can't say that the situation is ideal, himself. Because of those rash words of a Yellow with too much authority to her name, those cards have managed to become his problem, too. It could be solved in an instant if the Professor ordered the Obelisk Force down on the Resistance's stronghold, but the Professor has deemed that the potential loss of that many Obelisk members is foolhardy, what with their upcoming invasion of Synchro. They're switching targets, allotments are shifting. Leave what remains to Ed Phoenix and the Tyler Sisters. 

Privately, Dennis wonders where the Professor's interests really lie. Dennis knows he has his research team, or that girl from Yellow with more loyalty to her work than to her brother. If the Professor really wanted, Dennis is sure he could find a way to reverse the process, if not create some kind of protection against it entirely.  

Well. Shun still carries that stolen disk on his back, so it seems as if he’s not out of time yet. He can still salvage this, somehow; it’s all just a matter of timing. The disk; he'll start with that. If he's lucky, he'll be able to pull Ruri away while he's at it, but he'd rather not meet her at all, this time around. He'd hate to steal away the dirty work from Yuuri, who's looking forward to it with such dangerous anticipation. 

His position within Academia still isn't known to the Resistance as a whole. Guessable only, perhaps, to Shun, who's much faster to catch on to incongruences than Dennis' self-preservation wants to give him credit for. But he won't meet Shun today, so it doesn't matter. His half-formed stories and excuses, summoned up as easy as breathing and smiling when he doesn't mean it- today, they don't matter at all. 

Still. When he walks out of Academia-controlled territory and into the fringes of the Resistance, it feels wrong. The set of his half-frown is too hard, too intimidating, the length of his strides are too hurried, too anxious. When a voice barks out for him to stop, he jerks to an uncomfortable halt where he's clinging close to the wall. Despite his misgivings, he thought it was a believable level of cautious; perhaps it had just been suspicious. The voice calls out- "Are you Resistance?" 

"Are you?" He asks, trying to sound hopeful. Apparently It's the wrong thing to say, because he's met with a duel disk and a scowl across a thankfully unfamiliar face. It would look quite at home on Shun's, though. Dennis imagines the hard set of it is exactly what he'll be met with if Shun ever finds out. 

"Shut up. You're a new face. Explain yourself, now," snarls the boy, and Dennis throws up his hands in a show of surrender. He opens his mouth to explain; the next voice that rings out renders it all hollow breath. 

"Wait, wait! I know him! He was with Kurosaki from Spade!" 

 _Things had changed, after that day._   _It would have been impossible to claim to not notice otherwise. Shun didn't object to Dennis' use of his first name, and Shun, who hadn't seemed to call him by name much before at all, responded in kind._  

 _When Dennis decided to drag him somewhere for the novelty- usually into gaudy tourist shops_ _or_ _pop-up_ _theme restaurants_ _,_ _it was harder to deny the fact that Shun seemed more willing to indulge him- or at least to be bribed with the promise of free food or card packs on the way back._   _Dennis was overspending; he found it rather hard to care_ _if Academia wasn't going to warn him about it. And if they ever did, he could always call it scouting._  

 _He didn't bring up inviting Shun to class_ _; for once,_ _Shun_ _didn't bother pushing the issue. They had a momentum about them;_ _silently they both acknowledged that_   _it would happen eventually._ _But for_ _now_ _they were content to laze around park benches eating snacks from the_ _convenience_ _store bags between them, watching the world slip through another lazy afternoon._  

 _"What are you going to do when I leave?"_ _Dennis_   _asked_ _, knowing exactly what would_ _happen when he did_ _. Still, it wa_ _s a terrible sort of_ _curio_ _sity_ _that_ _compel_ _l_ _ed_ _him to ask, like a glimpse at a life that could have been._  

 _Shun answered_ _him with a question, not the one he'd expected."What do you mean, leave?"_  

 _Dennis replied with a halfhearted shrug_ _, and dropped his empty bottle of soda into one of_ _the bags between them_ _._ _"I'm not staying here forever. I'll have to go back eventually."_  

 _The answer that came was simple and entirely deadpan._ _"Then I'll just drag you back_ _._   _The pro circuit needs someone tacky_ _to balance out all the talent."_  

 _Dennis feigned_ _great offense_ _. "I'm both tacky and talented," he said,_ _be_ _cause_ _it was harder for Shun to find something to retort with if he accepted the insult._  

 _Shun frowned at him, brow a little furrowed with the start of a glare. Dennis grinned_ _silent_ _and still_ _,_ _not about to give Shun any more ammunition._  

 _He said, finally-_ _"You'll have to settle for fourth place though."_  

 _"_ _Wh_ _y_ _fourth place?" Dennis protested,_ _though he already knew the answer. Shun may have been his only friend here, but he knew the reverse wasn't true._  

 _"Because that's just enough to keep you off the podium," Shun replied_ _, digging into his bag blindly for his drink and frowning when he pulled up Dennis' empty bottle._  

 _"But_ _I'l_ _l_ _have more fans," Dennis retorted, falling into a familiar banter._  

 _"Only because they're taking pity on you."_  

 _Dennis leapt without thinking into the next retort. (He'd forgotten what the point of his original question had been.)_  

“Allen?” Dennis asks, not knowing why he would have changed course so drastically. And so quickly- but the size of the patrol, easily a dozen people, raises more questions for that than Allen alone would have. Dennis glanced them over, unfamiliar faces all, and gets half an idea.  

“Yo,” says Allen, shooting him a grin and a lazy salute as he stops at the head of the patrol. 

Dennis nods in response, then asks- "I thought you were going to the Sanctuary on the hill." 

"Yeah, well, I was," Allen says, looking a little bit like he'd just been chided, "but then I met a bunch of people from Clover on the way down, saying they were gonna come get a bunch of Clover students and teachers that got caught up over on this side of the city. So I figured hey, you helped me, so I should try and help some people too." At the end he grins, his smile too-bright against the wary faces of those behind him. "It's what Anna would've wanted us to do together." 

There's not much that Dennis can say to that. Luckily, Allen doesn't give the silence time to rest, jumping onto the next topic in an instant, ignorant of the wary faces of the Resistance at his back. 

“Hey, where’d your scarf go?” he says, and for a second Dennis thinks he’s been caught. He instinctively reaches for the frayed edges that aren't there, anymore. He'd left it in the bag on his back. Once he'd taken it off, it had never felt right to put it back on again- but it isn't as if those are words he can say. 

"It got caught on the edge of a fence. There wasn't enough time to go back." It's a simple excuse, utterly believable. Allen's poncho is frayed at the edges where Dennis can imagine the same thing has happened a dozen times over. 

"Huh," Allen says, "that sucks. Hope you can turn something else up." 

There's another moment of silence; Dennis starts to speak, a meaningless ' _It was borrowed anyway_ 'but Allen cuts ahead of him, jumping topics again. 

“See,” Allen continues, “I was trying to figure out where I’d seen you before. Then I realized. You came to the Clover Branch before, yeah? When Sakaki came to do guest lectures, you tagged along and helped out with demonstrations and stuff." 

Dennis nods- at this point, if he tries to speak, they'll just end up talking over each other. 

“So I was thinking,” Allen continues, “when we make the big exchange, do you wanna come along with all the Clovers? You don't have to, it's just..." For a moment Allen trails off, and Dennis suspects that perhaps Allen had seen more of the state of the refugees at the Sanctuary than he'd let on. "You know, it's hard for people to stay positive. So I was thinking of stuff that would cheer people up. Like roller skates! Or magic tricks! You know, that kind of stuff." 

"The exchange?" he asks, latching on to the new information before he can stop himself. 

Allen blinks up at him, for once his momentum halted. "Huh? I thought for sure you'd be in on it. Sayaka and Kurosaki were..." 

He trails off a second, and Dennis hopes desperately that Allen is talking about Ruri. He has to be- if he'd met Shun, then surely he'd be wary of Dennis' sudden appearance after Shun told him... But maybe Shun never told him. He's certainly stubborn enough to keep the details to himself. 

Dennis shakes his head- too many threads to think about, not enough time. He has to do this now, or he'll never get another chance. He can always tell Yuuri that things have changed... But no one will be happy with that. There's no room at Academia for cogs that can't keep up with the pace of the machine. 

Allen shrugs. "Well, whatever. You're in on it now." 

Dennis doesn't even have to prompt him to explain it- a goldmine of information to cracking open the ribs of the Resistance, dumped on his lap without a moment's thought for his trustworthiness. He supposes that's what happens when you put your life on the line for someone else's sake- they believe in you. This is it, Dennis thinks, detached from it all as the information runs its course, this is the chance they’ve been waiting for; the final strike before a blade to the beating heart. He'd picked a good disguise.  

He can't take long to confirm the details- the patrol behind Allen is growing restless, even within their own territory. Dennis can't say he doesn't understand the itch to move. Still, it's enough. If he brings back this,  _now_ , Academia will forgive him anything. 

"I need to get back to the stadium," he says, "I need to meet Shun soon." 

"Want me to go with? I guess Academia has been sending people this way lately," Allen asks, but Dennis shakes his head.  

Allen coming along would ruin his half-formed plans completely. He phrases things carefully. "You have things to do with Clover branch, right?" 

That settles it immediately. Allen waves him off as he heads towards the stadium, unable to hide his haste- though at least this time, it's realistic. Suddenly he's bursting with too many roles to play and too little time left on the stage. 

The two girls guarding the stadium entrance don't pay him any mind as he slips through the doors, too busy trying to comfort a crying child to worry about if they've seen him around before or not. And why should they? To their knowledge, espionage isn't Academia's style. 

And really, Dennis thinks, it generally isn't.   

He slips though the boxes stacked up in great piles in the lobby, walks down into the main floor from one of the side tunnels. No one stops him. If he's recognized, it's as the street performer they'd seen once or twice, over the summer, finally having made his way to the base. He has no reason for the worry gnawing away at the edges of his plan- 

He gets about two steps inside before everything falls apart. Staring straight at him, bucket of water hanging carefully from her hands, is Kurosaki Ruri. 

He blinks. The boy before Ruri in line steps away, water collected. Dennis can't decide whether to abort mission now and cut his losses with the new information or to try and carry this through until the end. Ruri steps up to the spigot and turns it on. The rush of water matches the sound of ringing in his ears. 

And all the while, Ruri is staring at him. Not openly enough to be rude, but Dennis doesn't miss the glances she keeps sending his way. He doubts that she's really trying for subtlety. 

Dennis doesn't really know what to do. He waves amicably. The two of them have never officially met, so there's no reason for her to approach him, on the off chance that Shun is a bit better at showing pictures to his family than his friends. 

Still, she walks up to him after a moment. "Are you, by any chance-" 

He doesn't want to hear the end of that sentence. 

"Sorry," he replies, "I don't think we've met." 

Ruri considers him one last moment, then shakes her head. "No, I don't think we have. I just thought... that you might be a friend of my brother's, is all." 

The best he can do is feign ignorance. People always see ghosts in the aftermath. It's likely enough that she'll retreat, thinking herself mistaken. "Your brother?" 

"Kurosaki Shun," Ruri elaborates, and it seems that fate isn't on his side today. It's his own fault. After knowing Shun, why would he ever think that a Kurosaki would give up on a hunch? 

She sees something that Dennis doesn't intend her to. He's a little alarmed to realize that he doesn't know what it is, either- the tell that tips her off. She steps back a little hesitantly, like she wants to take his hand and drag him back to wherever she's headed but would really much rather not be so forward. 

"Wait here," Ruri says, "I'll go get him. I'm sure he knows you. So just... wait here for a second, please." 

She gives him a little nod that he returns out of habit, then turns away slowly. Once her back is turned, she trots away between two tents, bucket of water forgotten beneath the dripping spigot. 

Dennis doesn't wait. Everything is ruined if Shun sees him now. He's good at playing villains, at knowing just where to prod self-proclaimed heroes to get a reaction from them that'll make the audience roar. It doesn't mean he particularly wants to play traitor. Not in the stronghold of the enemy. 

(Not before he has to, anyway.) 

Watching from the hole in the roof means he knows exactly where the disk rests when it's not in Shun's hands- a little area off to the side of the arena, tucked in the back lobby. He tests the knob on the door, it turns and swings open without a sound. When he ducks inside, the room is lit with a pale blue glow and a generator hum. The young man who runs this area has stepped out- it's fortunate and unplanned, and it means he no longer has to feel the burden of threats he doesn't mean. 

The disk sits beside one of the Resistance's, the latter much more battered and worn than the former.  Dennis grabs the disk and shoves it in his bag, where it rests atop the folded red scarf settled at the bottom.  

He probably should have worn it on the way in- but in hindsight, it's a good thing he didn't. If Ruri had seen him with it on, he'd never have been able to pull this off. It's a red scarf- just a plain red scarf. No monogram, no special thread, no mark of its former owner written on the tag. It could belong to anyone. He can't fight the sense that tells him Ruri would have known immediately. 

He feels a set of eyes on him as he leaves, strolling out with purpose. As if he'd been invited there, as if he's just completing a task he'd been assigned. If he phrases it that way, he thinks, it's not even a lie. Those eyes don't fall for his act. It doesn't matter- once this is over, he's not coming back.  

No one calls after him as he leaves, no one calls a warning, cries thief to the bustling base. He leaves, bag thrown over his shoulder, and the weight of those silent eyes vanish, the only ones the wiser for it. 

 _He was alone, on his stage today. And that was fine with him- his act worked just as well as a solo performance as it did standing across from a partner._  

 _He wanted a_ _larger_ _stage,_ _certainly_ _-  if an entertainer were to say that they didn't want to touch more people, then they were either timid or a liar-_ _even_ _the ones who performed for their own self-_ _satisfaction still wanted_ _their_ _exist_ _e_ _nce_ _to be acknowledged-_ _but_ _he didn't need it. His Heartland days sped forwards with a momentum that could only sweep him up along with them_ _, lost in the whirlwind._  

 _He toyed with the idea of coming back to Heartland, when it was all said and done_ _, but it was a childish thought, a fantasy_ _propelled mostly by prompts from questions that morphed far from_ _their_ _original intent with their answers. It wouldn't be so bad, thought Dennis, to go on like this forever._  

 _But it was just a passing thought, an amusement to pass the time._  

 _There wouldn't be a Heartland to come back to._  

 _The group before him had grown to a sizeable amount; Dennis clapped his hands and thought it time to start the show._ _He swept his gaze over the crowd, debating if he should pull from the audience today or not_ _._   _O_ _verhead the afternoon sun slipped from between a part in the clouds and_ _caught on the audience below_ _, a yellow glint here, a silver gleam there, a brief_ _passing_   _of eyes_ _._  

 _No, he decided after a moment of searching,_ _to_ _day_ _the stage was his, and his alone._  

One last thing. One last transfer of information, and then this is all behind him. He can dreg up the pieces of the person he was months ago and put on that face, sweep into his role in Standard like a fresh start. He'll be an Entertainment Duelist, right from the start. He can honestly say he's looking forward to it. 

“And you’ll be on the point here.” 

Ed's voice snaps him back to the present, speaking words that break from the script. 

“Is this really my job?” Dennis asks plainly, because he hasn’t quite grown to resent his situation enough that he’d speak out of turn to a commanding officer. He's meant for more than Academia's busywork. 

“Well,” Ed replies, “No. It’s not. But one of the best in Blue was on this position, and you did let him get turned into a card. If you fill in for one operation until we can find a replacement, that would be helpful.” 

Dennis crosses his arms. He can’t argue with that. He doesn't ask for how long, either- he'd taken more time in Heartland than he had any right to, in the days before. The anemia of his late progress reports are proof enough of that, and the both of them standing here know it. Instead, he asks, "Do you have an extra uniform?" 

Ed lifts an eyebrow. "Yes. But it's not necessary. The Tyler sisters are already here, breaking protocol as it is. I can't say I'm happy about it, but it's sped up the process considerably." 

It would be nice, he thinks, if Grace and Gloria had come along as part of the main force. This is an opportunity they'd gladly snatch away from him- Grace more knowingly than Gloria, but that's always been the premise of their friendship.  

But he can't suggest that here. Instead, he explains- "I just thought that the troops here aren't as familiar with me. I didn't think they'd be fond of taking orders from someone who looks like Resistance." 

"Then lose the scarf," Ed says, unamused. Dennis' hand goes to the frayed edges before he can stop it. His protest of the early fall chill die in his throat before he can even think to articulate it. "Besides. Whatever you and that honors student are planning, I've been told you need to stay undercover. Or at least covert." 

"You're right," he replies, "I didn't realize we were moving on that plan so soon." 

Of course he had realized- that's the entire reason he'd put the scarf back on in the first place. (That, and it really is cold- nowhere near the frigid breeze that sweeps across Academia in the winter, but fall has come to Heartland, and what trees remain upright are shedding their leaves one by one.) 

Ed just shakes his head. There's one last night remaining until the Resistance sets their operation into motion. Just one last day, and it's all over. Ed leans back in his chair; it's clear with his next words that Dennis is dismissed. "I'll introduce you to the team you'll lead tomorrow. I'll have words with them about listening, no matter what you're wearing." 

And Dennis does meet them. They're an unmemorable but ambitious bunch; he supposes that they'll do. For the first time in weeks, time drags by to the tick of the clock in his temporary room- a relatively cheap one from one of the amusement park's attached luxury hotels.  

Until morning- he wakes early to a creeping anticipation and set of anxious knots dueling their way through his stomach and lungs and head. He wanders over to his desk, staves it all off by going over his deck one more time. He shouldn't have to duel until he and Yuuri set their branch of the plan into motion, but he's made adjustments in the event that this, too, is like everything else- subject to change at the last possible moment. 

After all the time he's spent in Heartland, it's almost strange to see fusion cards shuffled in between his entermages again. He shuffles though it a few times, then sets it down and flips over his extra deck- Trapeze Force Witch and the vibrant purple of her card are there waiting, grinning up at him like an old friend.  

"I'm sorry," he apologizes, "for keeping you hidden for so long." 

The card says nothing, of course- but if he listens long enough to the silence of his room, he thinks he can hear a phantom laugh, the twin to Trapeze Magician's. He wants them both to sail across the stage with him, without facing ridicule for one or hatred for the other. 

In Standard, maybe. If his cover allows for it, then... 

One thing slots into place, another thing falls apart. He glances up at the clock. It's still well before time to depart, but they'll have a briefing soon. He might as well be early, for once, and do something for that less than punctual record of his since arriving in Heartland. 

He leaves his room; the students he's in charge of are already loitering about in the lobby. They scramble into practiced line as he approaches. "Everyone here?" 

They reply with scattered 'yes sirs' and 'all present's. He inclines his head, turns his back to start out of the lobby, towards where Ed Phoenix has set up his office. "Then let's go.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come and find your love in the Heartland-  
> (And understand that it will _never_ forgive you cowardice in the face of the end.)

It's only been three days- maybe four, depending on if he counts that long night as a full day or not- since he's arrived in the stadium. Since he's found Yuuto and Ruri again, since their trio has reformed, become the reckoning force of the Spade Branch once more. With a solid front and a disk tossed between them, there's no enemy they can't overcome. Not Academia's students, not the Obelisk Force. Not even the Tyler Sisters, whose name sends a stiff jolt through Yuuto and Ruri alike. 

(Shun hates them just for that alone.)

It's only been three days, and yet it almost feels like an eternity, one piece of the world returned to the way that it should be.

Dawn comes again to Heartland, and Shun watches through the hole in the dome as it stains the sky in bright pastels, unaware that they no longer match the city below. Still, the autumn leaves give it a valiant attempt, turning deep and vibrant red, as if the city itself is showing its support for its Resistance. A rustle, a movement of air- Shun turns to watch as Ruri pokes her head out of the tent behind him, rubbing at her bleary eyes and stifling a yawn.

Yuuto had confessed that neither of them had been sleeping well before Shun arrived; Shun imagines that it was about the same as him- That is to say, in fits and disturbed by dreams that all he can do is shake away come morning.

"How'd you sleep?" he asks as Ruri shuffles to his side.

"Good," she replies, and it doesn't sound remotely like a lie. "I probably could have used a few more hours since the operation starts today, but,"- a shrug- "when you're awake, you're awake."

They all sleep lightly, these days. Time spent sleeping is time spent wasted; time spent sleeping is time spent vulnerable. There's a truth he probably wouldn't speak if he had been with anyone else- as it is, he's just relieved enough to say it. "I probably wouldn't have slept at all, if I was alone."

"At least we both had someone," Ruri says, then looks away, up at the sky. Again does Shun's gaze follow. A few birds sit lined up at the broken top of the stadium, their silhouettes just barely visible with the fluttering of their wings. Shun hopes they don't sweep down, looking for crumbs- they don't have anything to spare, anymore. 

"Did your friend Dennis have any siblings?" Ruri asks out of nowhere, and Shun almost snaps out  _why do you want to know_  before he catches her expression- it's completely serious.

_No_ , he almost says again, before realizing that he's not entirely sure if that's the truth of not. He'd never thought to ask. "Probably not," he says instead, because somehow Dennis doesn't strike him as the type. He knows he'd mentioned Ruri to Dennis on more than one occasion. Though Dennis had never reciprocated the family talk, he can guess that he would have mentioned having a sibling. 

"Ah," Ruri says, words spilling out before Shun can even think to ask why, "because I thought I saw him."

If there were any lingering traces of fatigue still left in him, those words banish them completely. He feels, for a moment, as if he's back out on the streets, a wire-tension snapping tight through him, an urgency bubbling up and boiling over everything else. "Where?"

Ruri glances away briefly before she answers, clearly reluctant. "In the stadium." She speaks under Shun's  _what_  with a soft but certain- "He claimed that he didn't know you very well. And at first I thought I was wrong, but I couldn't have been. I thought about it all night, and I  _know_  I wasn’t mistaken."

Which meant that she  _had_  been lying about sleeping well, and Shun hadn't caught it at all. When, thinks Shun, had he grown just so bad at picking out deceit? It's a matter for later, and the both of them know it.

"When," he demands more than asks, and Ruri bites her lip before she replies. It's as good as confirmation of the answer. 

"Yesterday. I followed him to the room where they were doing research on the disk. And after that he left in a hurry. And alone."  _Against_ _protocol_ , Ruri doesn't add, though she doesn't need to. They're both thinking the same thing. There's only two reasons he would do something like that. And in the end, they're essentially the same thing- the only thing that changes is the length of the deceit.

"You said he was trapped on the other side of the barrier, right?" Ruri says, "So maybe he's just doing what he has to."

_What he has to_. It's a flimsy excuse, and it's pointless to try and think otherwise. He's run out of patience for excuses and delays and the softness of things that can't be moved to action with his own two hands. If she says it to try and make him feel better, it doesn't work. Well. She has to have known that it wouldn't. He's scowling, he realizes, as Ruri moves back from his side. 

"I'm going to get ready," she says, and slips back inside the tent with scarcely a presence.

Shun, left alone with his thoughts and drawn tight as a bowstring ready to fire, starts to trace the lines of everything that he'd been too focused on the present to see before.

_"I want to stay like this," Dennis said, so quiet that Shun had to strain to hear it. If he hadn't stopped typing just a moment earlier, he probably wouldn't have._

_"Suit yourself," Shun replied, "I'd rather be done with this deck profile. It doesn't matter how good the theory is if it doesn't work." And off of Dennis' floor, to be even more specific. It wasn't a comfortable thing to begin with, and Shun didn't want to think about how much time they'd spent side by side, chipping away at their respective work with an unparalleled lack of enthusiasm._

_"That's not what I mean."_

_All this talk of what Shun is going to do when Dennis is gone, all this out of character melancholy- it could only mean one thing. Shun already knew what it was- he was as good as told. He shut his laptop, shoved it off to the side and shifted to face Dennis properly. "When are you leaving?"_

_Dennis shook his head. "I don't know. Soon."_

_That was the problem, with Dennis- always too vague, speaking of eventualities and possibilities as if they'd already been decided. Shun said, simply- "Why don't you just stay?"_

_Dennis looked at him with something akin to open shock- as if Shun had mentioned something he'd never even considered. Shun filed it away in the moment it took Dennis to school his expression into something a little more generically surprised. He'd seen a lot of expressions out of Dennis in their time together. That wasn't the only genuine expression Dennis had shown him, but it was perhaps the most unguarded._

_"I'd like to," he said, "I really would."_

_"Then just do it," Shun replied, and slid closer to Dennis, until they were practically pressed shoulder to shoulder. If he missed one thing Dennis muttered under his breath, he'd never get Dennis to repeat it. "All the main pro schools around here have dorms. Like I said. We need someone tacky around Spade to balance out all the talent."_

_"Like your taste is any better," Dennis replied, "Do you own a single pair of pants that aren't black?"_

_No. But Dennis didn't need to know that, and that was far beside the point he was trying to make. Because this was what Dennis did- talked his way around conversations he didn't want to have, used more smoke and mirrors than his deck to compliment the occasional playful lie._

_"If you're that desperate to find out, why don't you come and stay in our attic? Then you can judge my clothes and I can judge your awful taste in decoration every day."_

_Shun wasn't sure what compelled him to offer- he'd never considered the possibility before. Not even when Dennis had mentioned leaving the first time. Their attic was a mess, a storage room full of things from distant corners of the planet and dusty on the absolute best of days. In a way, though, that suited Dennis already._

_Maybe it was because Dennis obviously didn't want to leave._

_(Maybe it was because he didn't want Dennis to leave just as much.)_

_Dennis leaned forwards, readying himself for his next words. Shun refused to back down now, not when he'd escalated it this far-_

_And Dennis kissed him._

_Shun hadn't had any words for that- just a tentative reciprocation and the stray thought to wonder what he was getting himself in to. It was just a moment (or two, or three, or four)- but it felt like so much longer until Dennis pulled away, words already on his lips. "I'm not apologizing for that."_

_"You've never apologized for anything in your life," Shun said, "why would you start now?"_

_"Fair," said Dennis, and leaned forwards again. This time it was slow, deliberate- almost daring Shun to try and pull back. He didn't- he wouldn't. For better or worse, he met Dennis there, work sitting forgotten at their sides as the afternoon dragged on._

_Dennis had said he'd wanted things to stay the same. But they'd changed, that afternoon. They'd changed-_

_(He had, at least.)_

This is the time that Shun hates the most- the waiting, watching the sky for the first streaks of twilight and counting the ticks of the lobby clock still valiantly pressing forwards along with the rest of them. It doesn't matter that whatever train of thought he tries to start, it always leads him back to the same conclusion- the same one he'd reached at the very beginning.

(The correct one.)

Then, finally-

"Time to go," Yuuto says, and draws his bandanna up over his face. Shun nods and does the same. On his other side, Ruri runs her fingers down the length of a feather earring and takes a steadying breath. The weight of the stolen disk at his back had always been reassuring, an assurance that he can turn the tides; he replaces the feeling now with the warmth of being flanked by the people he trusts most in the world. 

The three of them make up one team, with Sayaka acting as liaison between them and the group from Clover they're supposed to meet. There's a dozen other groups heading out with them, scattering about the city before they reconvene at their meeting point in an old office building that has withstood the initial advance with minimal structural damage. The inside is a bit of a different story. The four of them are assigned to the attached warehouse, and they slip in through the half-opened door only to find the place a ransacked mess- though that too is just to be expected.

They've arrived earlier than anticipated; for the third time that day Shun finds himself left with nothing to do but think silently, though this time the company is tense. Shun can barely tell the difference- it's the state he's been in all day.

Allen's group is late, their mirror in opposite- but there's no sounds of fighting, to telltale flashes of light to clue them off to something going sour outside- not until a group slides in, five in number and breathing hard. Shun recognizes the boy at the front, with his bright red hair and poncho, mussed and dirtied- Allen.

They draw closer silently; when Allen speaks, it's in an apologetic whisper quieter than Shun would've though him capable of. "Hey, sorry. But listen, we think something's up. We knew we'd get tailed, but-"

It all goes wrong. Allen doesn't get to finish his sentence, as the hangar door crumples to the ground, rent through like paper beneath the onslaught of a few hounds. 

"Oh, come on!" Allen protests, but they have the upper hand over the handful of Obelisk Force that have arrived to challenge them. Together step up Clover and Spade, and their opponents fall in one fell swoop, just in time for another patrol- their reinforcements, presumably- to run in to cover their backs.

It doesn't matter how many of them come, Shun thinks, and steps up to challenge them first, Yuuto not a half-step behind. The Resistance won't lose now. Not when It's their turn to stage an offensive.

The first two of Academia's patrols that pass them are expected. The third, and the fourth, and the fifth- 

What had started as a consolidation and distribution of forces has turned into a free-for-all, and it's not the Resistance that's controlling the flow of things. The teams have long since been divided and scattered, but Sayaka and Allen fight back to back with Ruri, while he and Yuuto have taken opposite pillars, trying to watch whatever exits they can between the mess.

Evening has weathered on into the late night, and Shun doesn't want to think about the people that they've lost. Instead the empty spaces turn to motivation, turn to energy every time that he thinks that his chipped away life might be a reflection of his own state. 

And finally, finally- after Shun has lost count of the duels and forgotten just how many flashes he'd seen over the hours- there's a change. The Obelisk Force backs off for a moment- just a single moment, enough that Shun can take a breath without watching his hand, watching his opponent's field.

And then they swarm forth again, but this time it's different. Normal students are scattered in with the Obelisk Force. It's a sign, and it's one in their favor. However long this has lasted, they're nearing the end. Shun catches Yuuto's gaze, the two nod and shift positions to accommodate Ruri, Sayaka and Allen behind them. Around them Academia's forces are doing the same, dividing and shifting so as to hide their weakness near their final gasps-

And from behind a support beam he catches sight of a familiar frame, wearing familiar clothes right down to the scarf that he's looping around his neck-

And he knows exactly what's about to happen before it does.

(He moves, but it's not fast enough.) 

A group of students rush them, separating him from Yuuto and Ruri's group from them, and while they're trying to regain their footing the last wave of Obelisk Force sweep them up into duels. He lets the Obelisk Force push him back and back and back- because that's closer to where Ruri and Sayaka had vanished beneath the sudden swell of blue and bone mask.

He was wrong, he thinks as he grinds down three of the enemies' life to dust in a single turn and takes the next two not a turn later- he was wrong. What Academia was hiding wasn't weakness. It was a front, orchestrated by their master, and thrown into place by the one most fitting for it all.

"Yuuto!" he yells, then turns his back and dashes towards where he'd last seen Ruri, disappearing behind the crates, towards the back door, where hopefully she'd taken Sayaka and Allen and escaped unscathed.

"Got it!" Yuuto yells- his duel, too, is nearing its end. Academia's forces have disappeared in the chaos, and his feet against the cement are too loud, echo too far in the space that hadn't been so barren just a few minutes ago.

The back door is ajar; Shun throws it open and makes no attempt at subtlety as he runs through, scanning the cross streets for any sign of the lost three. Yuuto reaches his side just as he spots her- Sayaka, standing a block over, searching just as frantic as him.

He's down the block and at her side before Sayaka even has the time to process his appearance. She's crying, tears streaking down her cheeks; Shun refuses to think of the implications.

"Where's Ruri?" he snaps at Sayaka, and it just makes the girl sob harder. "Where is she?"

"Shun," Yuuto says, harsh- but doesn't Yuuto see? He can always apologize to Sayaka later. He can't find Ruri  _now._

Sayaka takes a deep breath and forces out, all at once- "I don't know where she went! There was a duelist with a dragon, and we got split up by the Obelisk Force, but another duelist came and helped Ruri, and Allen is searching the other direction but I didn't find anyone that way, so-"

"Over here!" That's Allen's voice, calling from the direction that Sayaka had been pointing just a moment ago.

He runs. He doesn't care who follows. He has no more questions, doesn't have the breath to bother wasting anyway. He runs and runs and outpaces even Allen with his head start, and thinks that if Dennis is about to make a choice, then it better be the right one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and lose yourself at the heartland  
> You'll forget who you were before  
> Give it up, you can have it all  
> In the heartland  
> \- Tom Walker/ Heartland


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he could have his way, he'd just run from it forever- the consequence, the memory, the persona that had grown into something real.  
> (It's a damn good thing he doesn't, then.)

The stage is set magnificently. A carefully planned ambush, a hand in Ruri’s, a dirty back alley and a stray fusion spell stuffed up his sleeve. She doesn’t really trust him and the reassuring smile he gives her when they hit the dead end with Yuuri at their backs, but that’s fine. She doesn’t have to believe in him to recognize the red scarf tied around his neck, so tight he’d rather it just choke him. 

The only thing he doesn’t have to fake is his loss- he draws Fusion one too many times to gain any sort of momentum.  _My deck is going to brick_ , he says to Grace, the memory of a lifetime ago ringing in his ears. 

Shun and Yuuto round the corner just as Yuuri takes both of their lifepoints to zero, and Dennis grabs Ruri's wrists on the pretense of shielding her from Starve Vemon's blow. Shun yells for Ruri, but Dennis doesn’t hear a word of it- they’re gone in a violet flash that obscures everything else he could have possibly seen. 

He blinks, and Heartland's grey caught gentle in the moonlight is replaced with the warm glow of light posts scattered about a courtyard, illuminating flashes of brown and green and the scattered head turned towards the sudden arrivals. 

Academia’s scenery is strange to see again, after so long. It isn’t as if he’s forgotten the time he’s spent here- it's not like he could, no matter how much he wants to- but in Heartland it had all seemed so far away. Because the open cheer of Heartland roads were so opposite the narrow streets above old waterways he’d grown up on, and the living bustle of the city, so wild and free is nothing like the precision found between Academia’s walls.   

Was nothing like Academia. Now, it’s a much closer thing. Fledgling and emotional, driven as much by reaction than meticulous planning, but still with the same budding capacity to be cruel. He wonders, as he gets used to the feeling of earth beneath his feet again, if it was ever going to end with anything but. 

"Where am I?" Ruri hisses, and wrenches free of Dennis' grip with surprising strength. He whirls around to face her, catching Yuuri's disapproving expression-  _why didn't you knock her out?_  

Dennis shakes his head. That's Yuuri's style, not his. Distance set carefully between them, Ruri bares her duel disk, faces them with impossible determination. "Answer me. Where have you brought me?" 

Yuuri sighs, then steps up to meet her, arms thrown wide. "Welcome to Academia. Unfortunately, you won't be seeing very much of it." 

"Don't threaten me." Her voice does not tremble, though there's fear in her eyes she can't quite manage to hide. 

"They're not just threats. See it more like a promise," Yuuri replies, latching onto that emotion with the countenance of a predator when he steps up to duel. And that's the mark of her defeat- Dennis knows that better than anyone. Ruri, to her credit, isn't a pushover. Not without Dennis there to intentionally drag her down and make the duel short. Yuuri just isn't the kind of duelist that anyone with a shred of fear left to exploit can beat.  

She falls to her knees with the force of Yuuri's final attack, unable to stand against Starve Venom's onslaught. But she puts up a good fight. It's more than he can say for most. 

She's dragged away by the wrists, spitting fire so reminiscent of her brother about her capture- though not about the loss. Dennis doesn't attempt a laugh without humor, just turns his back on the whole affair and thinks that it would have been kinder of Yuuri to knock her out with the finishing blow. Of all the times for Yuuri to take a cue from his set, rather than the other way around. 

He finds the Yellow where he expects her to be, off in the side labs, the ones that only honors students and those with special privileges are allowed to enter. They're not the Professor's personal labs, but they're only half a step down, as evidenced by the impressive array of research equipment that fills them. 

He hands over the disk with a great sense of relief that only dissipates the more that she fiddles with it. She stands up, paces wordlessly to the far side of the lab, and then comes back. "This is the disk?" 

"Of course it is," Dennis replies. There was no mistaking which one it could be. If the Resistance was in the practice of actively picking up Academia's duel disks, he thinks he would have heard about it. 

“What do you mean this is the disk?” says the Yellow, not ceasing her pacing a moment- if anything, Dennis’ admission only makes her pace faster. "No, this isn't it at all. There's nothing on it! It's a dummy model. A trick! They must have known we were coming after it-" 

"That's impossible," Dennis says, but the Yellow doesn't appear to hear him- or more likely, she just chooses to ignore him and continue with her monologue. 

“Oh this is bad, this is bad, this is so bad-“ she stops, looks straight at Dennis- “You’ll have to go back. I’ll put in all the requests, don’t worry. I know they wanted you on something else, but I’m sure there’s nothing more urgent than this. Could you just imagine what kind of setbacks it would cause if they could  _all_  use the program?" 

“Wait, no,” Dennis protests, because this isn’t the way it’s supposed to go. According to the plan he’s supposed to go on to Standard and establish himself there while Yuuri takes care of the girl in Synchro- an orphan, an easy mark- whereas Standard’s girl has a support network, she’ll be harder to get while still keeping an eye on whatever LDS is planning. “Have the other Red do it. I need to go on to the next stage of the plan. Or can’t you retrieve it? You did want to avenge your brother, didn’t you?” 

The Yellow scrunches up her nose, and it doesn’t take Dennis more than a second to identify the emotion in her eyes. He’s seen it enough in the past two weeks- fear. She says, trying her best to sound offended, “I do! And I will avenge him. But I can’t risk getting turned into a card. You have to understand-“ a little desperation, now- “the Professor’s trusted me with maintenance of the program. If I’m not here, then they’ll have to pull a member of the senior staff away from their projects, or, can you even imagine it, the Professor himself- So I can’t. You understand, right?” 

What Dennis understands is that she’s just another dime a dozen coward- but after his last performance, who is he to talk? He shrugs. “So what about that other Red? Seems like he was listening to you.” 

“Not anymore. Some nonsense about going back to his actual leader since you split up with the guy with the disk. Which definitely isn't what I told him to do, but apparently that girl's having a hard time or whatever. Whatever!” she says, definitive, and Dennis knows he’s just lost his last chance to change her mind, “You should still have a small window of time, shouldn't you? All you should need is one day. Think of it like this. The Professor himself is counting on you. All of Academia is counting on you. But if you still can't..." 

She's in no place to be threatening him, and he bristles at the slight- but he can't risk that the influence she can pull will be more than his. He knows what the end result of that will be; has known it from the very beginning. The students that chose to defect when Academia took its turn towards the warpath, the students that failed at their scouting tasks, at their research objectives- If Dennis ever ends up as a card, it's going to be on his terms, and his terms only.  

"Fine," he agrees, and starts making a list of everything he'll need as he turns and leaves her to her isolation. It isn't long. It doesn't need to be. 

Instead of returning to his room to gather it all, he heads off to a place where he won't be disturbed- where he can watch the familiar flow of Academia's comings and goings, distanced from the actual workings of it all. He stays there for a while, watching the bustle of early synchro preparations.  He wonders if he'll have a chance to go, and in what capacity- if all goes well, it'll be undercover with whatever plans are brewing in Standard against Academia. But at this point, he knows better than to expect that the plans will. 

Eventually, he starts to get the sense that people are looking for him, to no avail- they never think to check the slope of the roof, especially not in the early hours of dawn.  

In the end, it's Yuuri that finds him easily- not that Dennis is hiding. The roof of Academia's main education building is where the two of them had first met, Dennis killing time before his next class, Yuuri... Dennis never did find out exactly what Yuuri had been doing on the roof, that day. At this point, it hardly matters. 

"Need my help?" he asks, because Yuuri's got that little twitch to him- the tiny tells of irritation that mean he's been asked to do something he deems unpleasant and intends to pass it off on Dennis. 

"The prisoner's meal schedule hasn't been determined. The Professor wants something brought to her as soon as possible." 

Of course it would be something like that- Yuuri never has wanted much to do with things once the game is over. Dennis sighs. He really doesn't want to do this. Ruri won't want to see him, and he doubts she'll eat anything brought by a traitor's hand. Still, Dennis climbs to his feet. If nothing else, this will kill the time much faster than sequestering himself away up here. "I'll do it," he says, maintaining the illusion of volunteering for the both of them. 

Yuuri doesn't thank him, but Dennis had never expected him to. So silently he slips down from the roof and wanders his way over towards the cafeteria, just below the school store. It's not technically open, and Dennis finds it nicely deserted, save the bustling behind the counters. Miss Tome is in the shop as always, overseeing the shop's opening as they get ready for the early risers. He doesn't even have to explain- she waves him through to the cafeteria with a pleasant,  _take whatever you need, dear._  

Dennis grabs a tray with a smile of thanks- she always had been oddly fond of him and the other special class students. He's not sure what Ruri would want to eat, so he decides on a mix of savory and sweet, a large selection of light portions rather than a few heavy dishes. 

Small bowls of rice and soup, a cup of mixed fruit and a bottle of water. At the far end of the line, there's a mini-waffle with a drizzle of berry sauce. Dennis vaguely remembers it as being one of the more popular breakfast items on the menu, so he picks it up- and then he's hit with the smell from the still-warm plate.  

It's soft and sweet without being sickening. He thinks he's seen this exact thing in a café, once. It reminds him of Heartland, and it reminds him of... He puts the plate back down. If things like this bring Heartland to the forefront of his memories, then they'd surely do the same to Ruri. He doubts that she wants the reminder of everything she'd just been stolen away from, right now. 

_It reminded him of this-_  

_"_ _Well you know_ _," Dennis said, and waved his spoon in_ _Shun's_ _vague direction, "you're pretty forgettable."_  

_"You couldn't forget me if you tried," was_ _Shun's_ _reply_ _._  

_"I don't know," Dennis said, glancing around the admittedly rather nice café while_ _trying not to give the game away- "If this is your idea of a date, then I don't know if your ideas make much of an impression at all."_  

_"Who said it was a date?" Shun spluttered, and Dennis almost took pity on him- but only almost._  

_"Did you or did you not kiss me in the back alley after school today_ _and_ _tell me you_   _wante_ _d_ _to go somewhere?"_  

_Shun couldn't say anything to that._ _Neither could Dennis have, at the time, too caught up in_ _Shun's_ _pace- and he chased away the cold reminders that he should find that worrying. Those were to be thought about later,_ _whenever_ _he made that report._  

The march up to the tower is one of the more unpleasant things he's experienced in the past few weeks, and Dennis  _really_ thinks that's saying something. Still. It's nothing compared to actually opening the door. 

Inside, her eyes go wide. Dennis has never resented the fact that he’s somehow become Academia’s go-to errand boy more than now. She doesn’t waste breath on questions she already knows the answer to. It’s both a relief and more of a subtle attack on him than it has any right to be. “So, you were deceiving him the whole time. I wish you would have just come for me first. It would have saved us all time.”  

He's not allowed to say he regrets it, not where someone might hear. Besides. As a blanket statement it's a lie. He's tried to avoid telling those, except perhaps those of omission. Not that he has a problem with telling them. Shun just seemed like he'd appreciate the honesty. 

Ruri huffs, crossing her arms where she sits on the bed. It cuts the silence between them so sharp she might as well have gotten up and shoved him. "So you're not going to defend yourself?" 

"Do you want me to say that I didn't do it?" He asks. He has no defense on which to stand. It would be easier to bear the brunt of her anger, but it never comes.  Maybe she'd spent it all on Yuuri, maybe her intent is just to bottle it up until it all spills over, explosive and devastating.  

He doesn't know. He won't be around to find out. He sets the tray down on the table, and says, pleasantly, "This is for you. No one has any intention of letting you starve." 

"That's supposed to be any consolation?" 

Not really. Dennis shrugs, a make-of-it-what-you-will. He hesitates there a moment, waiting for Ruri's response- but none is forthcoming, and he leaves with a bland nod. 

“I’m glad I never introduced myself to you,” is her final remark as the door clicks shut behind him. 

He shares the sentiment. There isn't a single second of his time spent in Heartland to regret. If meeting Ruri would have ended things simply and quickly, he's glad that the route he took was drawn-out and complicated.  

_The last person he met before he left for_ _Xyz_ _was Grace, eating one of their semi-regular lunches together._ _They sa_ _t in the courtyard with cards spread across the blanket between them, Trapeze Magician and two Shadow Makers on his side and a full field of_ _Amazoness_ _monsters on hers. She was one of the few who'd duel him seriously when he was_ _running_ _his_ _Xyz_ _monsters, because she'd always cared more about the_   _dueli_ _st_ _and less about the summons._  

_"Don't get lost," she'd said, and destroyed one of his Shadow Makers while he was still trying to process the implications of that._  

_"What?" he said, reluctantly picking Shadow Maker up off the field. He wanted to save his set card another turn; she'd pulled this combination on him one too many times for him to fall for it again._  

_"In Heartland," she clarified, scratching off a nice chunk of his life from the scratchpad between them, "don't get lost."_  

He sits at the edge of the tower for a while- there are no guard rails lining the platform, the stairs. On a foggier day than this, it would be too easy for someone to miss the edge and go tumbling off the side. His legs hang off the edge and he stares down at the ground below, relishing in the vertigo. He thinks now, that what she meant was more like  _don't lose yourself._  

He sits on the edge, staring down at Academia below, and wonders if this is the kind of world where finding things counts as losing them, if you forget yourself long enough. 

It's where Yuuri finds him some time later, looking irritated that he was forced to climb the stairs anyway. "Are you ready to go? I can take you to Xyz before I go to Synchro." 

Dennis almost says yes, but he remembers, suddenly- "There's something I need to get. I'll head back to Xyz tonight. I won't need to be undercover anymore. I can just take-" he thinks but does not stutter- "my usual disk." 

“Well,” Yuuri shrugs, “I’ll pick you up once I’m done. It won't take more than a day or two." 

He understands the threat lurking beneath. He also knows he doesn’t have to respond- but he does anyways, because that’s what he’s always done. “Don’t keep me waiting.” 

If it's possible to startle Yuuri- to honestly, completely surprise him- then that does it. For a moment his expression is unguarded, and then it slips into that amused, lazy curiosity of his. "I won't." 

"Good," Dennis replies, and pulls himself back from the edge. They walk down from the tower together, then part ways- Yuuri off to Synchro, and Dennis back to his room. He knows what he needs to face the end. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's kinder to let it all end in flames, thinks Dennis, and steps willingly towards the conclusion.  
> (For the both of them, echoes Shun, and tears apart the pages of the epilogue.)

Ruri is gone. Ruri is _gone_ , and all the pieces have fallen into place, and Shun?  
Shun is _furious_.  
He prowls the streets near-constant, Yuuto a warning shadow at his side. It's all he can do until someone at the base figures out how to cross dimensions as easily as Academia's pawns flee back home. Soon, Shun thinks, a dark mantra that consumes all else, soon, and takes to the streets to give those once-again emboldened soldiers what they deserve.  
Their operation had failed, but the offensive carries on.  
"Shun," Yuuto breathes, stopping at the corner of what used to be a convenience store, now a pile of shattered concrete and plastic and glass. Shun draws to a stop, immediately sees what's caught Yuuto's eye. A single girl dressed in red, cornering a group of children in the back alley.  
Shun doesn't waste a moment before he darts towards her, draws her attention away and into a duel while Yuuto creeps around to the children's sides. He doesn't spare her the pleasantries of last time. He’s done with asking questions, with doubting, with waiting for answers that won’t come. He thinks he should have let the Resistance in him burn it all away much sooner.  
The duel lasts two turns, and only because his initial hand doesn’t spiral nicely into one of his usual combos. Blaze Falcon's final impact slams into her hard, and she hits the ground only to desperately scramble back to her feet when he approaches. He towers over the Red girl with a too-familiar face as she cowers, drawn up into herself when her back had hit the wall. She blubbers, the words barely understandable though the onset of hysteria and tears.  
"That's what you deserve," he snarls, and she casts a terrified glance over his shoulder- but there's nowhere for her to run, not with Yuuto and the children blocking the way out.  
"Shun," Yuuto hisses, but he ignores it- he doesn’t have any reason to listen. This girl has been wasting their- wasting _his_ time for days now, and he has more important things to worry about. He always has.  
"They're not even duelists," he says, and hits the new button on his disk- the first test of their counterattack. He barely sees the shadow duck out from the shadows of the debris until there's a boy with arms thrown wide planted firmly between him and the red girl- and then he's gone.  
"James?" says the girl, so very quietly as the card flutters to the ground in a flash of light that obscured the moment it hits the ground. That name is the last word she says. Her card lands on the ground just beside his, and it's the last he ever has to think of them.  
"Shun," Yuuto says, and elbows him hard. Finally he glances over at the children standing just behind Yuuto, staring wide-eyed and shocked- some gazes frozen on him, some on the cards.  
"It's okay. They won't be able to scare you anymore," he says. The children nod slowly, but those frozen expressions don't change. He would try to smile, but he can't muster up the illusion of true safety. Not now.  
Instead Yuuto lays gentle hands on their shoulders and shepherds them forwards, towards the stadium. "Let's get you somewhere safe," he says, and Shun watches their back with sharp eyes for an ambush that thankfully doesn’t come.  
(It’s almost a little disappointing. It means he misses a chance for revenge- it means his thoughts run wild in the back of his head, throwing kindling atop the flames and stoking them into a roar.)  
And the one question, over and over. How many times?  
_(He'd thought that things couldn't possibly have stayed the same. Because that's what happened, when you kissed someone- relationships changed, interactions changed, everything-_  
 _But nothing had. Not really._  
 _They'd still bantered and dueled and sat across the booth from each other at Dennis' favorite restaurant after class. They'd still hung out in Dennis' apartment that didn't feel like a home, and though they never spoke about Shun's offer, he knew that the thought of the attic was heavy at the forefront of their minds, those days._  
 _They'd gone out and continued their normal routine with such regularity that neither of them had really even thought to call them dates, until the day perhaps they had._  
 _When the skyline had crumbled and home had fallen apart before their eyes, it had been the two of them through it all._  
 _And until the very end, he'd trusted Dennis to have his back.)_  
How many times had Dennis known just the place to go, found just the right opportunity to push through or circle back around?  
How many times was he lied to?  
He could count them, if he wants, the way he used to count fallen friends like a promise of vengeance. Now, there's no point- he couldn't hate Dennis more even if he tried. He has no patience for betrayal. He has even less for anyone who dares lay a hand on his sister.  
The Resistance enlists him and Yuuto for a mission almost the moment they walk back through the stadium doors and the children are shuffled off with a former teacher. Typical, run-of-the-mill, an evacuation of a compromised shelter for non-duelists. The location is a small freestanding grocery store, where a few families have been sequestering themselves since the invasion. Go in, get them and their resources out, and escort them safely back to the main base. Shun knows better than to trust that things will go according to plan.  
They don't. Of course they don't, but this time, Shun is at least prepared for it to all go to hell. He sends Yuuto ahead with the front guard, knowing he'll make it out fine- because from here on out, he's told himself he'll trust without faltering. He takes the rear guard, covering for the both of them. The non-duelists are more important. Academia's students come after him, and he takes them down in twos and threes until there's nothing left in the room but him and a halo of cards, and the flicker that catches his eye.  
It’s Dennis. There’s no mistaking his frame as he slips through the empty building- the one who was part of the attack on the operation, the one who fed all their information to Academia, the one person he thought he could trust through till the end.  
It’s Dennis. The one who stole Ruri away from under his nose. The one who helped ruin his home. They both know the consequences of that. He's prepared for what he has to do. (Because it has to be him. The thought of anyone else even trying is…)  
“Shun? Shun, you’re here, aren’t you. I know. You’d always choose to be the rear guard if you couldn’t take point..”  
Dennis’ mocking voice calls over from the next room, and Shun freezes, stops breathing for a long, long moment. He had assumed, naturally, that Dennis wouldn't want anything to do with him after what he'd done. Avoidance is in his very nature, after all.  
“Come on, Shun, I promise I’ll let you go today. I just want to talk a little, okay?”  
Dennis doesn’t keep his promises. He never has, not when he makes them so flippantly, and Shun suspects that he never will. Shun braces himself for a trap, and willingly leaves his post to go confront him.  
Dennis is waiting alone in the next room, clad all in Red like the jacket of that pest and with an unfamiliar disk on his arm. He's acting laid back, unfazed, like all the times he'd been idling around in his room- but beneath that there's a sharpness that can’t be disguised, an aura that Shun has never felt from him before. It’s different from all the times Dennis had played the villain to his hero. It’s almost malicious, and it feels almost as if he’s staring at a hollow of the person he knows- the person he thought he knew.  
Shun doesn't bother using the breath to ask why. The fact Dennis came calling is incredible enough. He doubts he’ll get lucky enough for Dennis to answer his questions properly, too.  
“You betrayed us,” Shun snarls, and Dennis shakes his head slow and condescending.  
When he replies, it is cutting. “I was never on your _side_.”  
Shun takes a step forwards. Dennis takes a step back as he continues, “I stayed with you because you were the fastest way to find Ruri. My way into the Resistance. And then you got the disk, and I had to deal with that, too."  
Dennis is lying. Shun knows him well enough to realize that, and for a moment, just a moment, he slows down his impulse to rush into the duel long enough to have a conversation. Perhaps fortune is on his side after all. “You're lying."  
Dennis visibly flinches; it's as good as confirmation. Shun presses on- "You could have left me in the park. At the blockade. Academia would have let you through without half of the detours we took. You could have stolen the disk while I was asleep at Sakaki’s school and left me for the Obelisk Force to find.” He doesn’t say ‘ _but you didn’t'_. He hopes that just stings Dennis more.  
"So?" It's one word. A single syllable. The weight Dennis makes it carry is incredible.  
"What was your reason?" Shun asks, and thinks that he really doesn't want to hear it.  
For a moment, his words hang in the emptiness like a chasm between them, echoing in the silence of their minds- and then Dennis breaks it with a laugh. Once, short, a thing with no fondness. It is so, so hollow.  
“What, did you really believe that I ever loved Xyz scum like you?” It's the first time he properly says the words. Shun resolutely doesn't think about that as Dennis pauses, looks mock-thoughtful, but there’s nothing pensive, nothing resembling his usual laid-back attitude remaining in his eyes. “No, even before that. You didn’t really think I’d be interested in someone like you? Someone who thinks he’s superior to everyone else even though you’re powerless on your own?" Dennis pauses to scoff. "What would you have done without me, Shun?”  
His name falling from Dennis’ lips in that condescending tone is more of a knife to Shun’s chest than it should be, but any acknowledgement of that would be playing right into Dennis’ hands, so Shun braces himself to hear worse and spits back venom of his own. “I would have made it fine. I never needed you."  
No, he never did. But needing someone and enjoying their company are two very different things. The look Dennis shoots him is full of disbelief, and he knows that Dennis is thinking the same as him. When Dennis retorts, it's with a line straight out of one of his pretend villains with none of the underlying enjoyment. “Then I guess no one needs to get their heart broken after all. You're a better actor than I thought, Kurosaki. A few times, you even tricked me into thinking you could have been from Academia.”  
_‘Is that why we both ended up here?_ ’ Shun doesn’t say, shoving the thought back down, letting his anger swell back over his empathy.  
"Shut up," he snaps at the insult, "I'm nothing like you."  
Dennis laughs at him. “No, you're not. You’re just Xyz scum that happened to get lucky. So don’t act like you know anything.”  
Dennis shifts instinctively into a dueling stance, and Shun responds in kind, and it’s all tinged with a dark sense of nostalgia for the early days of their acquaintance.  
“I’ll grace you with real duel this time,” Dennis says, “and put your Xyz monsters back in their place.”  
Shun smirks, and for a moment, just a moment, he’s reliving their first duel, the sheer thrill of the show that began this whole chain of events between them, reliving the phantoms of every one that followed-  
And then they're gone.  
Shun lets his anger burn everything to shreds when he sneers- “Is that a promise?”  
Dennis shoots him a malice-filled smile and draws the first five cards that determine his fate.  
(Shun’s sure he’s remembering their first duel as well.)

All circumstances ignored, it's a good duel. He's not sure that a duel between them could ever be anything but; this time it’s just driven by bad blood and even worse intentions. Well. That's what he gets for thinking even for a second that there was any semblance left for reasoning between them. That's what he gets for wondering if sins could be forgiven so easily.  
That's what he gets for not being proactive enough, for not fighting forwards fast enough, for thinking that a single word out of Dennis' mouth, a single one of his actions could ever be trusted, even back at the very beginning.  
At the very end, he hadn't even been desperate. That doesn't mean that he'd felt any pity, at the end. Any remorse. And not even a lingering thought of love.  
_(“You won’t forgive me for this.” It was said not as a question, but in the flat tones if someone who knows it’s true. No. Not flat. Resigned. Dennis looked up at him, and it was as if all the malice had deserted him. Shun glared- if he was going to put on an act, at least have the courtesy not to break character until the curtain fell._  
 _“No,” replied Shun, and didn’t try to soften the blow._  
 _Dennis blew out a soft breath. There was dust like ash brushed atop his hair. Shun fought down the urge to reach out and brush it off, the words that tried to escape his throat much gentler than he could afford. “Academia. The top of the tower guarded by the moon. You’ll find her there.”_  
 _“I can’t trust you when you say that.”_  
 _“I know.” A pause, a shuffle of movement. Eyes meet, then- “If anyone can bring her back, it’s you.”_  
 _“I know.”)_  
Shun drops the card, lets it flutter to the ground at his feet, and turns his back. He has new things to focus on- meeting up with Yuuto, finding a way to Academia, and bringing Ruri back where she belongs.  
Shun leaves, and doesn't look back.  
He's going to set things right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have bought a Shun/Dennis doujin that almost made me cry the other day, so there's going to be some rare fluff from me on January 1st! 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me these past few months (and a year haha)! As with all my longfics, I'm not exactly happy with this but I think I learned a lot writing it. Thank you again for all your support!!


End file.
